The Ceiling: Chapter 1

Everything still looked like it did the night before at 7am when we got started. I had never worked with any steel panels before and had no idea what to expect. The contractor was disappointed I hadn’t hung the vapor barrier up before we started. I figured that would be quick and wanted to ensure it was done right so I wanted to do it with him. I had no idea just how much time and effort that alone would take.

That day I found out just how difficult it is stapling a huge thick plastic sheet to the ceiling without it tearing and falling back down. With that finally up we started an even more difficult task — having only two people try to wrestle 17′ sheets of steel without scratching them. Then holding them up trying to get them lined up perfectly and getting screws to bite through the steel to get them secured.

This was all we had to show for ourselves after 9.5 hours of work:

I had thought that we would have gotten the whole rear row done that day. It seems hanging 17′ sheets of steel with only two people is a fool’s errand. It was time for a new plan. I decided I (probably) had learned enough from the contractor and what I needed more than experience was more people helping.

I put some feelers out to see if I had some friends that would be interested in doing it for hire and got enough bites to make it work. I transferred all of my sheet metal knowledge I had learned in my day with the contractor to my new crew and we knocked out the rest of the back row in 6 hours including cutting out the scuttle hole for attic access.