Suspended Ceiling and Ductwork

[MSchoaf]

Well, thanks to this forum as well as a bunch of other great information I am almost done finishing my basement. I have decided to go with a suspended ceiling. However, there are 2 rather lengthy spans of double ductwork running in 2 of the rooms. I asked a guy at HD how to get around the ductwork as I want the ceiling height above the bottom of the ducts. I've seen the tiles run vertically along the sides of the ducts in some houses but I'm not quite sure how to do that. Do I have to build a soffit around the ductwork? Is there any other way or suggestions? Leave the ducts exposed and paint? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Planning on installing suspended ceiling this weekend.

Thanks.

[widing]

We are finishing our basement and built soffits around the ductwork. We will drywall one soffit and put wood on the other to make it look like a wooden beam. The rest of the ceiling will be dropped. We are using the CeilingMax system for our ceiling. Hope your project worked out.

[MSchoaf]

Thanks for the response Widing. After talking with some people and doing a bit more research, I came to the same conclusion...I need a soffit. So I figured if I'm building a soffit I might as well drywall it...even though I thought I was done drywalling for this project. Got the soffits done this weekend...breaking out the drwall tools tonight. I looked at CeilingMax, but I would need to fur out the entire ceiling as I have multiple obstacles at varying heights. I'm using the standard suspended ceiling. Got the gridwork up for the two sections that don't have ductwork...looking good!

[widing]

We have such limited headroom that a regular suspended ceiling wouldn't work. We will have to fur it out an inch or so because of obstructions unfortunately. If you have the headroom, a regular suspended ceiling is MUCH cheaper.

We just passed our insulation inspection so we can start drywalling now. Good thing we have a long weekend coming up.