Ceiling dry wall first?

[MushCreek]

In another 'Which one first' thread'- Could/would you drywall the ceiling before putting up the interior walls? My house has no load-bearing interior walls. It's just a big rectangle. It seems that it would be easier to put up the ceiling drywall first. No fitting, just sheet after sheet until you get to an edge. The interior walls would then just go up against the ceiling drywall. The only issue I see is overhead electrical. I have to see if my local inspector will let me do this. I can't rough in the electric first, as there wouldn't be any interior walls to mount switches and outlets on. I know you're not supposed to drywall until after electrical rough inspection, but it could be inspected from the attic. Obviously, I wouldn't do this without permission!

Have any of you done this?

[MountainDon]

Frame interior walls before ceiling drywall.
Then electrical, plumbing, etc. rough in after the framing passes.
Exterior wall insulation after that passes inspection.
Ceiling drywall and then the wall drywall.

I seriously doubt you'll find an inspector willing to do as you propose.

[Rob_O]

To elaborate on what Don posted, electrical boxes are mounted to the studs not the drywall. Wiring and plumbing need to be properly attached to framing members as well.

[MushCreek]

Drywall between framing members is taboo, then? I would of course attach the electrical boxes to framing, whether I did the drywall first or not.

In my county, framing, rough plumbing, and rough electric are all inspected at the same time. They've cut down on the number of inspections due to being understaffed, which in turn was caused by lay-offs due to the slowdown in the building industry. It amazes me that there is NO inspection in between the basement slab and framing/plumbing/electric. In essence, you build the entire house with no inspections! What if a major screw-up happens along the way, and no one catches it? Of course, when they inspected the framing for the barn, they barely got out of the truck, so I don't think the inspection will be very comprehensive.

[Alan Gage]

Sheetrocking my ceiling, after the partition walls were up, was much easier and quicker than I thought it would be. It's not too bad. Be sure to borrow or rent a lift, makes it so much easier. And fit the sheet length to the space. You can get 5/8" sheetrock in up to 12' length around here which gets rid of a lot of seems on some rooms. You might also be able to find extra wide sheetrock for 9' ceilings. This will be 4 1/2' wide and can get rid of a seem in some rooms.

I don't believe partition walls have to be securely fastened directly to the ceiling joists or bottom cords of the truss but I could be wrong. After all most of the methods of preventing sheetrock cracking due to truss uplift involve somehow not fastening the partition walls securely to the bottom cords of the trusses so that ceiling can move up and down without pulling on the wall. In my house I used 5" screws to attach the top plate of the partition walls to the trusses. I first drilled an over sized hole in the top plate so the screw would just slip through it and then didn't run it all the way up tight so that it could slide up and down as the bottom cords of the trusses pulled up in winter. This meant the walls weren't rock solid at first but once the ceiling sheetrock is installed they're trapped in place very well with no movement.

Alan

[Arky217]

Sheetrocking my ceiling, after the partition walls were up, was much easier and quicker than I thought it would be. It's not too bad. Be sure to borrow or rent a lift, makes it so much easier. And fit the sheet length to the space. You can get 5/8" sheetrock in up to 12' length around here which gets rid of a lot of seems on some rooms. You might also be able to find extra wide sheetrock for 9' ceilings. This will be 4 1/2' wide and can get rid of a seem in some rooms.

I don't believe partition walls have to be securely fastened directly to the ceiling joists or bottom cords of the truss but I could be wrong. After all most of the methods of preventing sheetrock cracking due to truss uplift involve somehow not fastening the partition walls securely to the bottom cords of the trusses so that ceiling can move up and down without pulling on the wall. In my house I used 5" screws to attach the top plate of the partition walls to the trusses. I first drilled an over sized hole in the top plate so the screw would just slip through it and then didn't run it all the way up tight so that it could slide up and down as the bottom cords of the trusses pulled up in winter. This meant the walls weren't rock solid at first but once the ceiling sheetrock is installed they're trapped in place very well with no movement.

Alan

Wow, I didn't think anyone did stuff like this but me.

Well, this is how I did mine; it seemed to have worked out ok:

My house has a truss roof; I put the ceiling drywall up before building the interior walls.
I also mudded, primed and painted the ceiling before I built the interior walls and before I
drywalled the exterior walls.

By the way, on installing the ceiling drywall, I used tinnerman aircraft washers under the drywall screws. They're a 3/4" dia. very thin stainless steel washer with a recessed hole to accommodate the cone of the drywall screw.
At first, I thought there might be a problem with the washer protruding, even though it was very thin,
however, it snugged up very nicely below the surface of the paper. ( I knew I was going to put a lot of
insulation above the ceiling and didn't want any worries about screws pulling through.)

When I laid out the interior walls, I first ripped 1x6's to 4.5" wide and screwed them to the ceiling
where the walls would go. Then I built the walls about 1/4 to 1/2 inch shorter than the distance from
the subfloor to the 1x4.5's.

Then, like Alan, I used 5/16"x6" lag bolts to attach the top plate of the walls to the lower chords of the trusses, going through the 1x4.5's and the ceiling drywall, and drilling slightly oversize holes in the top plates to accommodate the movement of the trusses.

Finally, after installing and finishing the drywall on all the walls, I used a cheap man's crown molding ( typical 2.5" wide door/window/baseboard trim ) and nailed it to the 1x4.5's. Thus, the 1x4.5's and the molding became part of the ceiling.
This allowed the ceiling to move independent of the walls without the eye seeing any difference.

( I also put the molding at the top of the exterior walls so the look would be uniform. )
A plus is that I didn't have to finish any wall/ceiling joints, ( although I did caulk the ceiling drywall to exterior wall plates for air sealing.)

Quite unorthodox I know, but nevertheless, it worked for me.

Arky

[MushCreek]

I did some searching online, and there are some builders who do the ceiling drywall before building the interior walls. The main reason seems to be that it is easier to really seal the attic. As Alan and Arky pointed out, the issue is dealing with truss uplift. I had never heard about truss uplift, so I did some research. The most common remedy seems to be attaching the edges of the ceiling drywall to the wall, but not fastening to the trusses less than 12-18" from the wall. This allows the drywall to flex, with the middle staying with the trusses while the edges stay with the wall. I also like the idea of attaching the crown molding only to the ceiling.

This might seem like a dumb question, but- How do regular builders secure interior walls? I'm sure they don't use lag bolts and clearance holes. Do they just nail the top plate to the trusses? I have to admit, I never really thought about it. Building interior walls is one of the few house-building operations that I haven't done, and I haven't gotten to that point yet. Time for more research......

Regardless of when I hang my ceiling drywall, I found some neat hardware for attaching the ceiling. Instead of all sorts of blocking where there isn't a nailing surface, you just attach a metal or plastic clip to the wall stud, and then the drywall attaches to the clip with a screw. Looks like a time-saver to me.

[Alan Gage]

I used drywall clips on my wall sheetrock. Worked great and a lot less blocking. Didn't have a need for it on the ceilings since the wall sheetrock supported it fine once it was up.

http://www.prest-on.com/

Alan