What to do with a drop ceiling

[dclafleur]

I recently bought a house with a 30x50 shop out back that needs some work. I'm finally getting the house and the land in order, so it's time to get the shop in order.

I'm trying to figure out where to start. The first issue I have is the roof has a drop ceiling with duct work and lights fitted into it. The ceiling looks like garbage, it has moisture damage on it and there's roll insulation sitting directly on top.

Is it worth trying to salvage the drop ceiling? It seems like a waste of vertical space to have a high roof line just to drop a ceiling down from it.

 

[metal1313]

it lowers heating costs, but if you need the height, arent concerned with heating or dont want to repair it, ripping it out is easy.

what i would do, if it was say 10 feet, is rip out the front by the doors for a lift and leave the rest until i could build a mezzanine for cold storage.

 

[Torque1st]

If the appearance is what bothers you new panels are available.

 

[Justanoldguy]

Spray it.
It will come up like new.

 

[dclafleur]

it lowers heating costs, but if you need the height, arent concerned with heating or dont want to repair it, ripping it out is easy.

what i would do, if it was say 10 feet, is rip out the front by the doors for a lift and leave the rest until i could build a mezzanine for cold storage.

Hadn't thought about leaving part of it in place, this might be a good solution. I was looking at making a lofted area for storage and walling in the area under it to create a painting area.

If the appearance is what bothers you new panels are available.

Yeah, I just wondered if they would suffer the same sagging and moisture problems. There's some already in the shop that the previous owner had left behind. It looks like he was another fine champion of half-arsed solutions. The shop was obviously built from used materials which I'm cool with, but he didn't do a good job of making them fit together.

 

[Red05GT]

They make moisture resistant ceiling panels but they are quite pricey. We had an old
Armco shop building that a guy put an acoustical ceiling in and it suffered the same
fate, moisture raining from the bottom of the roof panels caused the panels to sag
and the gridwork to rust. We finally ripped it down and used the metal liner panels to
put up a new ceiling and ran surface mount conduits and liting. We have taken discolored ceiling panels down and used ceiling white paint to freshen them but they
were in good shape. Then we repainted the grid.

 

[TONE]

Go to a metal supplier. Have them make up 2x2 panels, or 2x4 panels (depending on what you have)

A good supplier will have tons of colors of aluminum, stainless steel, coppers, and whatnot.

A brushed aluminum ceiling would look sweet, have a nice reflective quality and would still keep your heat in.

Plus with the drop ceiling you can easily run electrical up above.

Can lights would be super simple and you could really light the space up.

I would take all the panels out and rattle can the gridwork. Maybe a satin black?

 

[dclafleur]

They make moisture resistant ceiling panels but they are quite pricey. We had an old
Armco shop building that a guy put an acoustical ceiling in and it suffered the same
fate, moisture raining from the bottom of the roof panels caused the panels to sag
and the gridwork to rust. We finally ripped it down and used the metal liner panels to
put up a new ceiling and ran surface mount conduits and liting. We have taken discolored ceiling panels down and used ceiling white paint to freshen them but they
were in good shape. Then we repainted the grid.

Yeah, I think I'd have to figure something to keep more moisture from damaging the panels.

Go to a metal supplier. Have them make up 2x2 panels, or 2x4 panels (depending on what you have)

A good supplier will have tons of colors of aluminum, stainless steel, coppers, and whatnot.

A brushed aluminum ceiling would look sweet, have a nice reflective quality and would still keep your heat in.

Plus with the drop ceiling you can easily run electrical up above.

Can lights would be super simple and you could really light the space up.

I would take all the panels out and rattle can the gridwork. Maybe a satin black?

This would look awesome, might have to consider that idea when I have more money set aside.

So would it be ok to leave the insulation sitting on top of the panels? Or should I raise it to the roof line. The way it's put in now doesn't look right to me but I've never messed with a lowered ceiling before.

 

[bgott]

Tear it out and re-do the ductwork so it look like the "Industrial" look people are using in some buildings.

 

[dclafleur]

Tear it out and re-do the ductwork so it look like the "Industrial" look people are using in some buildings.

I've thought about tearing out the duct work, the a/c heat unit it is hooked up to doesn't work and looks like it hasn't in a while. I suspect it's the old unit from the house. I might strip all that out and eventually install a mini split system. Again I don't know, this is beyond what I've done in the past so I'm doing my best to study up here!