Seems the sheet rock could be laid horizontal at 4' +4' +2' to give you your 10 ft, that way little waste. You will need longer studs.

I thought the days of "railroading", hanging sheets vertically were long gone. Guess not.

Common sense tells you that the different heights affect every aspect concerning all materials.To get an accurate cost division, you would have to take a seperate materials takeoff with each individual height, even taking such things as ceiling fan extensions into consideration. Otherwise you will have to figure out an average or percentage table that maybe someone else here can help you out with.

Obviously materials will be slightly more, but a large part of the expense is labor. Drywall sheets are not incredibly expensive, and there will be waste anyway, since they'll be cutting short for ceilings and other parts. If the bid is much higher with the bigger dimensions, I would question him hard.

We did 10-foot downstairs and 8-foot up. I'm not sure about the overall cost difference, but I definitely don't think the sheetrock concern is legit. I don't know if they hung the sheets horizontally or what. I honestly didn't notice, but I do know we had very little waste. My builder commented on it.

Here is a link that might be useful: My progress blog

What's the best way to get a materials and labor estimate that I can contrast with the contractor's quotes? Thanks

I am building a ranch house and my framer said there would be no labor cost difference between 8' and 10' walls . He said that it's just as easy to put up a 10 ' stud as a 8' . The difference in materials was only about $800.00 - so it was a
no brainer . Insulation and drywall added another 2k . For me - the $ was well worth it . My rooms are very large and I think 8' ceilings would've seemed clausterphobic . Besides I can put in cheaper countertops now and easily change them later but I can't change wall height . The framer also suggested checking
the cost difference in trusses on 1 room to see what vaulted ceilings would be
and there was a marginal difference there , too . I went with the vaulted ceilings . It's all a matter of what is most important to you .

There are 10' lengths available but not all suppliers stock it.

USG Website, look @ page 7.

http://www.usg.com/USG_Marketing_Content/usg.com/web_files/Documents/Installation_and_Appl_Guides/Shtrkgypsum_panel_and_joint_treatment-installation_guide.pdf

They also make 4 1/2' wide sheets which is what is typically used for 9' walls.

I would agree w/ the above that the 4'+4'+2' is typical of installations w/ approximately 10' walls. I've seen quite a bit of going vertically as well w/ 10' walls as it reduces the amount of seams. If you have a good drywaller (hanger & finisher) it should not really matter which way you go from an aesthetic standpoint.

It appears your question is more in reference to cost than the number of seams. So, as mentioned above, sheetrock material is relatively inexpensive (approx. 32 cents/sq ft)

If you take the worst case & assume you waste the extra 2' on every sheet your cost numbers from a budgetary standpoint should look something like the following...

4,500 total sq foot, multiply by 4 to 4 1/2 for total sheetrock sq footage yields approximately 20,000 sq ft. 20,000 sq ft divided by 48 sq ft yields 417 sheets, at a 20% loss equals 83 sheets, @ approximately $12/sheet equals a waste of about $1,000.

I'm not sure what point your contractor is trying to make. Normally they want to know how may equivalent 4X8 sheets are to be used & they quote based on that after looking at the house plans to see other cost factors such as cathedral ceiling w/ high walls, etc.

Is he trying to persuade you to not go that route because (1) he has your best interest at heart & doesn't want you to pay for the waste (doesn't sound right as he could do 4+4+2), (2) 12'lengths do weigh quite a bit more & are tougher to hang (maybe it is only him & 1 helper), (3)maybe he gets his best price per sq ft on 4X8 sheets, (4)maybe he doesn't get the sheetrock delivered by the supplier & he uses a small truck that can't haul the 12' lengths, (5) mabye he only buys @ Home Depot & they don't stock 10' lengths, (6)etc.

After lowering our ceiling heights from 10' to 9' to save money, we got a disappointingly small decrease in our total estimate. It was mixed in with some other items, so I can't tell you for sure, but something on the order of a few thousand dollars. Your bigger savings will likely be on your siding since you're using brick, as we are. Also, we're using Icynene insulation in the walls and were expecting more of a decrease due to the expense of the Icynene.

If you were going to use taller doors, windows, or add transoms with the higher ceilings, and can now shorten those, that will be a fair amount of savings also. Sheetrock alone isn't going to make or break you.

You may find some cost savings in energy costs with less volume of air to heat/cool.

Do 10 ft ceilings look good with standard height doors and windows? We have 3x6 windows on the first level and 80 inch doors throughout the house. Thanks

doctj: There was an earlier thread with a number of people saying they had 80 inch interior doors and they were happy with them. Exterior doors, esp. the front ones, might be different. Sadly, increasing their size will cost more. Do some scaled drawings or otherwise simulate the design both ways and see what you think.

Do you have a link to that thread? Thanks

Sorry, I didn't keep it. Probably it was several threads. Here's one. Search for "door height" and "ceiling height" for starters.

Here is a link that might be useful: interior door height, 9' ceiling

My home is 1750 on main floor and 2000 on 2nd floor. We have 9' on main and upgraded to 9' on second floor from 8'. House isvinal siding with some stone. My builder charged me aprox. $2800. I would look at total price instead of sheetrock costs because this is just one compommnent.

We have 10' ceilings in our new home and standard height doors with fixed 12" transoms on all interior doors and back french doors. The front door is larger with no transom. I can get you exact size if you'd like. I'm not sure of all the exact window sizes. I know the tops of all the windows are 99" from the floor which matches up with the top of the transoms.

Brutuses, that is a great idea to get the height of your doors, putting in the transoms. I remember seeing some of your pictures and it looks nice.
We went with 8' doors through out the house because of the large area above a standard size door. Our ceilings are 9' and then vaulted in many areas.
yes, there was definately a price increase with the higher doors. As far as framing for the higher ceilings, I think we paid a few thousand extra. couldn't tell you on the insulation, sheet rock, etc.
However, we are very pleased w/our higher ceilings, taller doors and ultimately more space and light!
Another great idea mentioned was to draw it out on some graph paper and see the perspective. You will know when you see it if higher ceilings will be worth it to you.
Just my 2 cents...

The one concern I would have is how 10' ceilings look with the room sizes. I have a friend who just moved into a very high-end condo with 10' ceilings, but it's probably only about 2000 square feet and some of the rooms just seem to not be well-proportioned given the height of the ceilings in relation to the square footage of the rooms. In effect, too tall ceilings can make a normal size room feel funny and smaller than it actually is. If you have only larger rooms, this would not be an issue, but you should think about it.

If I understand this correctly, you're talking about a 4500 square foot house. In this area, a home of that size would probably have 10 ft. first floor and at least 9 ft. second floor as a standard. New homes here are being built with 10 foot basement ceilings also. If this isn't going to be your forever house, you might want to look at other homes in your area for a standard and consider future resale value

I agree, I'll just go with the 10 and 9 ft ceilings. My biggest concern is the doors and windows. Going to 8 ft doors adds at least $100 to each door,also kitchen cabinets have to be taller I presume. I will stay with 8 ft in the basement though, when finished a home theater should be in there and I don't think high ceilings will be that good for the acoustics.

kudzu9, your mention of the rooms not looking right proportionally is quite right and was my concern also. We have some small rooms, i.e., the foyer, laundry, guest bath. There are ways to bring the ceiling down with different paint treatments. For instance, I am painting the ceiling in the bathroom black so it dissappears. The black is also part of my red, white an black color scheme. In the foyer I may paint the ceiling another color other than white or I may bring the ceilig molding down about a foot on the wall and that brings the ceiling down also.

It's amazing what you can do with just paint to fool the eye.

We have 10 ft ceilings in our kitchen/dining/hearth room and we used standard sized doors. I don't think it looks odd at all. We actually had doors framed both ways and I liked the smaller ones better. The big 8ft doors that aren't that wide make me feel like a little person and I'm actually fairly tall, for a girl. :)

jeanne, we found the tall skinny doors looked funny and that's why we went with the shorter ones. We believe you have to have door very wide in order to have the taller ones look in proportion.

We had toured some newly built homes and the builder had tall, skinny doors and molding 12" wide at the ceiling and it was just too much for the size of the room and the 10' ceilings. Some people over do it and that looks worse than not doing it at all.

brutuses: We will be having 10 foot ceilings in our new home, too. Could you post a picture of one of your rooms with your doors and transoms? I believe you have noted somewhere here that you went with normal sized doors but with 12" transoms. (if I am not mistaken) Thanks in advance!

Here ya go, sorry no sheetrock yet, coming next month!! We don't have the transoms up over the bedroom doors yet, only the exterior back and side doors. For the front door we opted not to put the transom, just the big double doors. They are on their way!! Let me know if these photo's are enough or you need something else.

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side door

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3rd picture, first full window from the left...the beam above it with the second floor hanging from it, please tell me there's more than two studs next to that window holding it up, or something else I can't see holding up that beam.

Yes, there is, you just can't see it all from the picture. By the way it's only one story. We just liked this big roof so it gives the appearance of being 2 story. Oh this house is put together like a bomb shelter. LOL It's been built to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes and even an unexpected earth quake. HA! The man who framed it was so good and did such an excellent job. If all craftsmen were like him we'd never hear a complaint from anyone. He went above and beyond what we expected when it came to securing the studs, etc. Excellent workmanship is all I can say. He was an excellent match to work for my husband who is also fanatical about every little thing. That house is so sound a tornado would literally have to come to pick it up because no way could anything else ever budge one inch of it off it's footings who by the way are sitting on lots and lots of pilings driven into the ground. LOL

Looking now I see a one broken(jack) and two unbroken studs. What else is there or is that enough? I'm just curious what the engineer ok'd there. The beam isn't centered on the "post" but it doesn't always need to be. Again, just a curious mind here.
E

If my house falls you'll be the first to know it!! LOL

OWL: I love your stained glass windows! Where did you find them? Don't tell me you did them yourself. I would love to add a stained glass to a window in the kitchen. Nice blog - great to see the progress. Thanks for input.