Ripped up ceiling, best way to fix....plus crown moldings.

I had an exposed wire in my ceiling that I had to find quickly and had to hammer through my ceiling to find it.

The ceiling is dry wall mounted to studs, the drywall has tile on it. Not sure why the last person made this so complex.

Anyways, I'd like to do this the easiest possible way. I know this is going to be a messy job.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

I Also had a question concerning crown moldings. How do you cut them evenly so that the next molding meets it nicely?

There may be cases that I need to connect crown moldings together without them looking bad. Sometimes the connection might need to be straight or at 45 degree angles.

Is there some tool for that?

Thanks

 

The only way I see is to remove all the tiles. Could be a daunting task without tearing out all the sheetrock at the same time. The tiles may or may not be glued to the sheetrock.

 

Probably could have done a neater job with a chain saw......WTF was so urgent that you had to destroy the ceiling in this manner? Unless you have a case or two of extra ceiling tiles laying about, you are looking at a complete redo of your ceiling. Less evasive would have been to abandon the line you were chasing and run a new line to whatever you are needed. Apologies for being a little blunt, but.....

 

Regarding your crown molding question a compound miter saw is normally used to cut "scarf" joints in the molding. It helps to make the joints disappear.

Now that Z has broken the ice, it looks like what the doctor did on my first knee surgery, only worse. Let us know how the tile removal goes.

 

If tiles are glued than a complete new ceiling, Otherwise it looks like a sheet of drywall and new tiles.

 

Thanks for the info chandler. If I am going through this must trouble, couldn't I just start over with straight drywall?

 

Addendum: If the tiles are glued, then a new layer of sheetrock with 2" screws into the joists over the entire ceiling would be in order.

Our posts crossed. Yes, tearing it all out and starting over with sheetrock is a viable option, just a lot of more work.

 

Chandler, are you saying that I should/could just run straight drywall under the existing layer of drywall and tiles? That would be 3 layers in total. Would that not be too heavy overall? Maybe I misunderstood.

Yep, our posts double crossed. What about weight though, would that be too heavy overall?

That was my only concern.

How can I determine whether or not the tiles are glue? I think they are BTW, just not sure.

Also, wouldn't the screws need to be longer than 2 inches. Each of the 3 layers of drywall would be about .75 inches thick.

So the minimum screw length would be 2.25 inches unless I got thinner drywall for the lowest layer....if we are even on the same page.

Also, could something thinner like wallboard work/look nice/be less heavy?

Finally, would the 3rd layer allow me to do away with the crown moldings? Might save me time in the long run.

Thanks

 

The tiles were probably installed for sound control in an area that had a hard surface floor or cement floor installed. Straight drywall may acoustically be a poor choice unless you texture it some how to break up the sound. Just a theory, tell us a little more about the room if you could - what are the walls and floor made of?

 

cizzi - I gotcha on the sound control. House is 67 years old and is very small. I really hate my house as you can see.

No kidding, I really dislike it, but I am stuck with it.

This is in the living room.

The living room is real wood floor (tiny living room). When I moved in, it hard carpet over it. We re-carpeted it, but had a spill so went back to the wood floor, stripped it and then stained it dark.

The walls are awfully weird. I have hunted to find out what they are made of for years. If drywall could be carboard this would be what I have. One day an older contractor working on my door advised that the walls are made of Celotex.

I have smaller children and when they horse around, they go right through the wall. Was told by the contractor that he had only seen it for outdoor use and this was the first time he had seen it in that application.

I asked him if it was asbestos based and he said no. I did lots of research and apparently it isn't...still enough to freak me out.

Anyways, I got tired of the kids cracking the walls and tore it out of my living room. I put drywall in instead and insulated behind the walls. I later found out that this stuff has a decent R-value to it, so I won't be doing that again.

I textured the new drywall to hide all my mess and it came out well.

Right above this living room, is your typical Virginia 2nd floor that used to be an attic. Tiny 100 square foot rooms. One is directly above it.

Even with these holes, I can't hear a thing when my kids jump up and down.

I hope this helps.

 

Seeing as you have easy access to investigate Tell us how big your ceiling joists are, how far they are apart, and the total length of the room - wall to wall.

While messy, drywall tear out is usually very easy and quick. The ceiling should come out in short order with more time spent pulling nails/screws than pulling actual rock down.

 

Will take some more tearing into to provide that info.

Still would like to hear about the viability of just putting drywall up on top of what exists. Seems like less pain in the neck.

chandler? Could you please come back and respond to post #9 when you have a second?

 

Depending on what you find out in your investigation of the joist size, Sheetrock was most likely 1/2" as well as the tiles, so another 1/2" would make it 1 1/2", so a longer screw would be in the offing since you want a good bit to go into the wood to hold the last sheet. The others are held already.

As Z said, however, total tear out is a little messy, but will make for a clean palette for your new sheetrock. You may lose some of the sound deadening, but if it is not needed, you'd be good.

 

Just stick a tape measure into the hole you created a little farther than you did your hammer. Measure from the bottom of the floor above to the top of the sheet rock within one of your holes for how big your joists are. Then stick you tape measure into the hole and measure how far from one joist the next. Maximum span is the width of the room in the direction of the joists.

 

I can't see the joist size yet since that would require more tear into and the family is in the living room right now......

The combined thickness is 1 inch...so you were right at .5 each.

I'll come back and post some numbers for you guys when I can get some free space.

Thanks for all of your thoughts.

 

Top picture. Stick your tape vertically and measure from the top of the sheetrock to the flooring above. Looks to be 5 1/2". Then stick your tape in the same hole and measure between that joist and the one beside it. Should be 14 1/2" or 22 1/2"

 

Ok, hope I got these measurements the way you are asking for them.

91.5 inches from the floor to the top of the first layer of drywall.

Joists are 22 inches apart.

5.5 inches from the flooring above to the top of the first layer of drywall.

13 feet and 5 inches when measuring in the direction the ceiling joists run.

 

OK, 1/2" sheetrock will be marginal on 24" center joists, so you have to graduate to 5/8". This is added weight that probably should only be in a single layer, especially on 2x6 joists. Z will have other information for you, so hang in there.

 

Thanks for the update. What do you mean by marginal? Do you mean that the overall weight situation would be marginal or the strength of the sheetrock itself?

What do you mean by added weight that should only be in a single layer?

Thanks

 

Yeah, he is saying that is a lot of weight on a ceiling with 24" centers and 2x6 joists. Also is a concern with the 1/2" drywall sagging between the joists. I think that you are OK in this situation as you will not have any insulation weighing it down.

Roll up your sleeves, get a flat pry bar ready and have some fun taking out some aggressions on the ceiling, it all has to come down. On the bright side, you can positively replace whatever wire you were chasing. You can add can lighting as needed to update the ambiance of the room. It also gives you the opportunity to run new wires be they speaker, coax or whatever to update you house.

 

Z....You seem to be saying that I can pull this off in your 1st paragraph but totally against it in your second.

I really don't want to pull this junk down as you already know, but I will do so if I have to.

Am I ok with adding .5 to the existing setup or not? I already got past the awful wiring situation fortunately.

Thanks bud

 

First paragraph references, pulling down to bare and putting up 1/2" and not sagging. Normally you would install 5/8" drywall to prevent sagging. If this was the ceiling with attic above, you would have to account for the weight of the insulation.

 

Perfect and got it. One last thing...couldn't I use those lightweight styrofoam tiles on top of the other 2 layers?

That has GOT to way alot less.

Thanks again.

 

Could you provide a link to the styrofoam tiles you'd like to use? What size are they and how would you attach them to the ceiling? Foam needs to be covered to meet code [the tiles might already have a covering]

 

Here is a basic youtube on them....there are tons of links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WX79VaKzpA

Not sure if this is what I initially looked at, but they glue on.

 

If I were to use those tiles, I'd patch the ceiling as needed [may not need to patch all the holes] and glue them to your existing ceiling. You do need to make sure that all the existing ceiling is well secured as the glued on tiles are only as secure as what they are glued to.

 

No kidding and I concur with your thoughts.

 

Re your walls: they sound similar to some sheets of stuff used to finish a big attic bedroom in my childhood home in the 1950's - I used to think they were an early attempt at drywall, and the stuff certainly looked like it was related to paper. Painting wasn't successful. Yes, they were fragile, we had to be careful of them, and only school-age girls ever slept there, no toddlers or rowdy boys. But they had one advantage over drywall: we were allowed to stick pins and tacks into them because they held better than in drywall, and the holes kind of closed themselves instead of needing something like spackle. So the room amounted to an enormous bulletin board! We thought that a wonderful idea. Eventually it was wallpapered and looked normal and lost much of its cool.

 

Cellotex was very common on the ceilings of older mobile homes but I've only seen it a few times on walls. It is paintable but really benefits from a good primer sealer first! Not a good product for walls.