Thanks all. I just talked with the person who is going to do the work and
we are going to skip the idea of using steel studs. Instead, he'll pack out
the joists where needed as Colbyt suggested and then hang the drywall.

I'm glad I asked the question here. Something about sistering steel studs
along the existing joists didn't seem quite right to me. Maybe it would
work, but it certainly doesn't sound like a common practice. I know people
sometimes run 1x3's across the joists and shim where needed, but I didn't
want to do that either.

RonABC wrote:
I am having the kitchen ceiling replaced in a old house that I bought
and that I will be renting out. The old ceiling has been taken down
and what is left is the ceiling joists. It used to be a wood lath
and plaster ceiling. I can see where they used some strips of lath to
pack out the uneven joists when they first installed the original
ceiling.
The ceiling joists are uneven -- not by a whole lot, but maybe as
much as half and inch difference between the various joists. I want
to have a new sheetrock ceiling put in and do not want a dropped
ceiling.
I was assuming that the way people usually install new sheetrock
ceilings is to raise the sheetrock up to the joists and pack out any
spaces between the joists that are too high and the sheetrock so the
sheetrock will be flat. Is that what contractors usually do?

The guy I have who will probably put up the new ceiling suggested
buying steel studs and sistering them along the existing joists in a
way so that the bottoms of all of the steel studs form a flat, level,
and even surface. Then mount the sheetrock to the steel studs.

Is that what contractors sometimes or usually do in this type of
situation? I never heard of that before, so I thought I'd check here
to see what others think about this approach.

Thanks.