HI All
I’m a first-time user of this service, so please bear with me.
I’m planning to renovate an area 10′ x 15′ in the basement of a free-hold backsplit condo into a bed/sitting room. The problem is that the current ceiling (u/s of first floor joists to basement finished floor) is over 10′ and we would like to drop it to around 8′.
The plan was to frame 2 x 8 ceiling joists on 16″ centres from side wall to side wall, supported at the side walls by existing 2×6 stud framing, and finish the underside with 1/2″ drywall. There are to be no ties to existing first-floor joists in order to inhibit sound transfer. Two of the walls are “outside” (one backs onto the next unit, and its adjacent wall backs onto our garage). One wall contains a ground-level window while the remaining wall (existing) separates the bed/sitting room from a finished corridor and walkout.
I’m a little concerned about a comment I read on one of the posts about fire-retardant material being required on the underside of the existing floor joists, or perhaps I misinterpreted the post.
I’m open to any suggestions at this stage and looking for advice/comments.
Thanks
Replies
There's nothing false about that ceiling!
The other comment you refer to was probably regarding garage with living space over it. Due to the possible hazard of fire erupting in a garage, there must be the fire barrier between it and living space. Your room is living space/living space.
The other place a flame delay/ fire stop barrier would eb needed in your case is that there must be such between the various residences. This is to protect you for instancee if your neighbor has a fire erupt in his condo in the middle of the night and he barely gets out himself with his own family. He would have precious little time to evacuate you also. Twenty minutes is a lifetime in case of a fire.
But since the present arrangement is already in pace and presumably legally done, this would not afffect you unless you somehow penetrated that firewall.
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I think cr8vchar might be taking about this post 52308.1 or would that not apply since they are talking about a suspended ceiling in that post?
I think your situation is different than the other thread,but I believe you would need fireblocks in the walls at the new ceiling height.This is done with same material as the wall studs(2x6).The idea is to stop air flow that would feed a fire.
Good luck,Mike
If the existing walls and ceiling are already rocked, there should be no need for fireblocks.
That might be true if doing new frame construction, but the existing wall covering would suffice to prevent air flow through that space, as long as it is kept intact.
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I'm wondering if you'd really need 2x8 joists; it's not a big span, and it's only a ceiling, with no possibility of supporting a load (unless you find a family of elves less than 24" tall)....I don't think you'd need to concern yourself with fire retardants. It's only a basement, right?
Don't forget that you need to preserve the ability to access all electrical boxes and any plumbing, etc, that may need to be reached for service.