Installing Suspended Drop Ceilings

 Installing your Grid

The first thing we want to do when installing our grid is to place pencil lines on our perimeter molding in approximate locations where our main grid rails will go.

The main rails as we saw when we laid out our grid system will run the long length of our room and then because we are using 2 foot square tiles we will install 4 foot long connectors between each main grid and then 2 foot long connectors between our 4 foot connectors to give us 2 foot square openings throughout the room.

Once we have approximate locations we install a piece of plumbers strapping with extra room for working that will hold our rail in the air temporarily while we wire them in place.

Next we use the special clips that come with our materials to install a string line from one wall to the other.

You should purchase at least four of these clips so you can hang 2 string lines.

Main Grid Rails are 8 feet long and have clips on the ends to interconnect.

Where the rail meets the Perimeter molding on the outside we will need to cut off part of the clip so the edges will meet up flush.

Starting at one end of the room place your railing in the plumbers strapping position it against the perimeter molding and then cut off just enough of the clip as you need to make the ends flush.

Now screw a wire hanger into a near joist above it.
To make your life easier and to avoid splitting you can pre-drill the hole for the hanger and then use a small screwdriver through the hole and twist the threaded end into the bottom of the joist.

Once you hang one end go to the opposite end and place another wire hanger making sure that the rail just barely rests on your string line.

You should add additional hangers ever other joist or every 3 joists as recommended by your manufacturer.

Once you get your main rails up and a few pieces of connectors up  you will want to install a tile or two. Installing a tile will quickly show you if your grid is out of square. It will also help position the rails making the job of aligning things a little easier.

Now that we have our main rails up we can start installing our 4 foot connectors.

You want to install a 4 foot connector every 2 feet and then a 2 foot connector will be placed between the 4 foot connectors to give you 2 foot square openings for our tiles.

You should work out most of the full center field of the room before you attempt to install the outside cut pieces on either edge of the room. This way you can still reposition your grid and you won’t have a lot of miss cut pieces.

Does all of this seem like a lot of work? Well once you get started it will go much quicker then you think and it is actually kind of fun connecting the pieces.

Now that we have all of the center of the grid up we can start working on the edges of the room.