On Feb 12, 4:39*pm, aemeijers wrote:
On 2/11/2011 12:48 PM, RicodJour wrote:

In New England strapping ceilings is common - like Cliff did. *Other
people might call it furring - attaching 1x3s perpendicular to the
joists and making them form a level flat plane by shimming where they
cross the joists. *One thing I never understood about people still
doing that - I've never seen any pictures where you could see that
they blocked off between 1x3s along a joist for fireblocking. *From
what I've seen it seems that people just ignore that 3/4" gap - I mean
fire couldn't get through such a small gap, could it? *


Within the field of a ceiling, it is not a big issue, unless that joist
bay is being used as a cold-air return or other plenum. (Consider a
dropped ceiling with fire-rated tiles, and no rock above.) *Fireblocking
is mainly needed along walls, especially in balloon-framed older houses.
Even in a modern house, you don't want a good air path between a stud
bay and a joist bay, but the top plates usually cover that, again with
the exception of plenums, or an unusually framed room.

Standard disclaimer- I'm no fire code expert, but *that is *how it was
explained to me back in the day. In commercial work, they even make you
fire-caulk the gaps around pipes and cables, if it goes through a
fire-rocked or masonry wall.

My question was really more about how come fireblocking/draftstopping
doesn't seem to be an issue when ceilings are strapped. Code is quite
clear on the requirement, so I'm not sure why it seems to be
overlooked on the New England home improvement shows where strapping
is common.

R