I’m working on a basement remodel and after framing and running new duct work I had my drywaller come in and board and mud the whole place. they sprayed on a textured ceiling treatment. unfortunately they drywalled over a couple of vent openings in the ceiling without cutting them out, or making note of where they are.
does anyone here have any suggestions of a way to locate them in the newly finished ceiling?
thanks in advance, and any answers will help, I’m pretty desperate at this point.
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Replies
turn on the heat or the AC and use infrared imagining to deduce the spots - - don't know if you can rent that kind of equipment or not - - might be able to feel for it, I'm guessing you have a general idea of where to look -
that why I took pictures of each wall framing before sheetrock. I know where each outlet, electrical, cable, telephone, hvac is.
a good idea indeed - I've got photos of walls and outside drains and such - now if I just knew where the photos were.....
"there's enough for everyone"
using a IR Thermometer with the ac turn on it would show as the coldest spot on the ceiling. then if you turned off the ac the last spot to warm up would be under the vent. it should get you close.
be sure to back charge the rockers for your extra work and expense.
I have seen the ir thermometer listed for sale less then $80.00. -20° to 600° degrees
Edited 7/7/2005 2:16 pm ET by fredsmart
wanna locate em? Grap your saw and poke and cut. A hammer works good to. I bethcha thatn aint all that's covererd up either.
I can feel temperature changes where they are but not accurate enough to start cutting into it. the vents are 4"x10" and the area I can narrow it down to is about 24"x72". my initial thought was to use a thermal imaging camera but I have no idea where to find one of those.
I do have pictures of one of the two lost vents, so I could probably find that one with some educated guesses.
anyone know where one might rent a thermal imaging camera?
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Does your fire department have one? Go in, talk to the duty officer, and ask if he will swing by and give you a demo, in return for a nice donation to the firefighters' association.
they didn't cover anything else up. I have a couple access panels for junction boxes but they cut holes out for those. all the other vents they either marked or cut out. I'm pretty sure they did mark the lost ones also, but went and sprayed the textured ceiling before they cut them out.
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Call the sheetrock sub back onto the job? That's what I'd do... Matt
thanks for the suggestions guys. what I ended up doing was feeling around on the ceiling for the cold spots (AC was on) then I put a piece of .5 mil wire in my drill and drilled a tiny hole. I then took another piece of the same wire and stuck it in the hole and poked around to see if I could hear metal. I found them both on the first try. if they were return ducts I don't know know what I would have done.
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IIRC, you can get IR film that will work in a 35 MM camera....