wrote in message
news:1150217225.573479@smirk...
In article .com,
wrote:
I want to finish the ceiling in my basement workshop. At the moment
the ceiling is exposed. There is insulation in the joist bays above
along with the usual assortment of plumbing matters.

I am hesitant about sheetrocking the ceiling because of the potential
need to access utilities in the ceiling. T1-11 has the same problems.
One option would be to keep the ceiling open, which would not be a huge
deal but I would like to cover the exposed insulation.

First, contact your local building department or inspections
organization. You may have to put in drywall, for fire protection
reasons. It might even be a good idea to do so, or maybe work on
other fire suppression techniques, such as sprinklers. On the other
hand, the problem with losing access to wires and in particular
junction boxes and valves in the ceiling is massive.

We had the same issue with our basement, and in particular the
basement shop: open floor joists, with fiberglas insulation stuffed in
it. Big problems include that the ceiling continuously spews dust;
fiberglas dust is at least very annoying, and perhaps even
carcinogenic. Also, the dark ceiling makes the room look untidy and
dark.

We finished our basement with full building permits and inspections.
We did not need to put up drywall, because the basement already has
full fire sprinklers and a full set of hard-wired smoke detectors.
The building inspector suggested drywall, but was willing to relent on
that, as long as we have something dust-tight to enclose the glas
fiber insulation.

We ended up buying Tyvek (the white paper-like foil). One option was
housewrap, but that stuff is ugly, with printed manufacturers logos.
We instead special-ordered a roll of all white Tyvek. It was stapled
to the underside of the joists. For valves, you simply cut a square
hole in it, and close the hole by laying a slightly larger piece of
Tyvek on top. As the Tyvek is not permanent (it is easy to cut holes
in it), there is no need to make all electrical boxes immediately
accessible. Instead, we just wrote down where they are, and if we
ever need to access them, we can easily cut hols in the Tyvek.

Note that Tyvek is flammable (but treated to be fire retardant), so
check with your local fire codes. In our area, it was OK, because
fire sprinklers are mandatory anyhow.


Good advice. A foil backed paper may also work providing local codes permit
it.

Dave