Basement Ceilings have their share of obstacles in the road to work around. Most basement ceiling obstacles can be hidden-away inside framed soffits. Soffits consist of 2 main components, the “ladders” and the “cross-over” members. Building soffits for your basement project ceilings is an easy task that only requires some very basic framing techniques to make this project go smoothly!
Once you have built your soffit “ladders” and have them installed in the correct position, you then simply install the remaining “cross-over member framing to form the bottom ceiling portion of your soffit structure.
After all “ladders” and “cross-over framing” is installed there is one additional step to complete the framing of the soffit, and that is the bracing. The bracing framing is installed in the middle of the “cross-member” span and acts as a “stiffening brace” that keeps the soffit ceiling from sagging in the middle of the span.
The video above clearly will show you how to install your soffit “ladders” and the cross-bracing members and then how to stiffen the span with the bracing framing pieces. Soffits are an AWESOME way to hide 90% or more of all of the ugly obstacles overhead in your basement! I’ve been building soffits to hide duct-work, beams, pipes and wires overhead since 1992 and nothing takes the place of good basement ceiling soffit framing. Good luck with your basement ceiling project.!