What Ceiling in the Basement - Drywall or Drop

11 years ago

I have a couple of questions for fellow GWers... I am going to post each topic separately for the sake of clarity. We are planning to finish at least half of our basement when we build. We are planning to have 9' walls. My question is simple, what ceiling did you put in and why? My contractor quoted a $1200 add for installing a drop ceiling.

Thank you in advance for sharing...

Saftgeek-

Featured Answer

autumn.4

11 years ago

wow jrldh- I suppose I should have been more clear since Saftgeek is doing a NEW build. By all means design it to have all major tie in's etc. in the utility (unfinished) space so you can drywall the whole rest of the living space.

In our case - I was referring to a purchased home that had horrible placement of ducting/plumbing/electrical - you name it in the basement making it nearly impossible to drywall it in it's entirety when we finished it. Likewise the dishwasher was already installed when we purchased the home.

I would not drywall over major plumbing tie in's and shut offs, no matter what, UGLY and all.

IMO, even if it would have been an extravagant dishwasher installed by the best of the best that money can buy nothing is 100%... ever. It is not a perfect world. We chose to take our unfinished basement - lemons and all and make lemonade. There are decent tiles out there if you HAVE to use them.

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Comments (10)

jimandanne_mi
11 years ago
We put drywall where there were few things that might need to be accessed in the future, and dropped ceilings where there were lots of electrical wires, duct close-offs, and major water lines branching. We put the dropped ceilings in ourselves 3-4 years after we moved in.

Anne
kcinkc71
11 years ago
I'm doing drywall w 9' walls as well. You might want to check code in your area. Code just changed here. If using TJI (eng. joist), drywall is required now do to faster burn rates in a fire (I think that is what I was told)
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kcinkc71
11 years ago
I'm doing drywall w 9' walls as well. You might want to check code in your area. Code just changed here. If using TJI (eng. joist), drywall is required now do to faster burn rates in a fire (I think that is what I was told)
john_wc
11 years ago
We used drywall throughout the entire basement except in a storage room/workshop.

If you decide to do a suspended ceiling with lay-in tiles, use high quality, 2x2 tiles. Inexpensive 2x4 tiles sag like crazy after a short time.
Annie Deighnaugh
11 years ago
I wanted a drop ceiling for practicality, but architect said no way, so we went with drywall which he used as trays and such to enclose ductwork and it turned out lovely. Only thing is now, if we do have an issue, it will be more difficult to deal with. But much of the main plumbing and electrical is accessible from the utility space that we did not finish.
autumn.4
11 years ago
We did the very same thing as jimandanne and it paid off for certain. At first we were kind of bummed that we were sort of forced to use drop because of the way some of the plumbing/electrical was run. However - our dishwasher started leaking and thankfully we had drop where the major portion of plumbing was so we could get at it quickly and ended up having to buy 1 new tile versus cutting up and replacing our drywall and all that goes with it.

The main portion/seating area of the room is drywall so it looks rather natural. The perimeter when you first enter the basement is drop and that is where all of the lines are.

I would do it this way again in a heartbeat, or as Annie has if your access lines are in an unfinished area then your issue is solved right from the get go.
galore2112
11 years ago
Drywall all the way.

I would never choose a lifetime of UGLY just so that a repair is easier.

Just make sure that the utility work is of very high quality so that you don't have a leaking dishwasher.
lmrinc_gw
11 years ago
If your basement is EVER moist or gets wet, put in a drop...it's really a shame when you have to tear into that nice drywall because of mold or some electrical problem you couldn't forsee. I NEVER would have imagined that I would put in a drop ceiling but in the end, it actually looks nice, it's quiet and we've had a few toilet overflows which went down the vent which puddled on that tile which we just swapped out...can't do that with dry wall.
galore2112
11 years ago
I don't know what the big deal is with drywalling over plumbing. This is done all the time in houses with second floors and no basement. You would think that the thousands of two story houses here in Dallas with concealed plumbing are full of patched drywall due to leaking plumbing. Ridiculous.

Acustic tile drop ceiling looks worse than popcorn texture to me but I guess it's a matter of taste.