That basement ceiling in Milwaukee that nearly caved my head in

I was hanging 5/8 board in a drop ceiling conversion over on Lincoln Ave last month. The homeowner wanted it direct applied so we skipped the furring strips. Third sheet in I hit a spot where the old water damage made the joists rotted underneath. The board split right down the middle and one half swung down and smacked my shoulder. My helper Dave was on the lift and had to jump off to brace the rest. We ended up cutting out about 4 feet of the bad section and sistering in new 2x6s. Took us an extra 2 hours but at least nobody got knocked out. Has anyone else had a situation where the framing was way worse than you expected once you started hanging?

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wren_brown1d ago

I read a post from a guy in Chicago last month who said he found a joist completely eaten through by termites behind some old fiberglass. He said it looked fine from the basement side, but once he started pulling old tile down, the whole section crumbled like wet cardboard. He ended up having to jack up the floor above and replace about 8 feet of framing before he could even start hanging. That's the kind of hidden rot that makes you wonder what else is hiding behind those ceilings. Did you get any sense of how long that water damage had been going on from the look of the joists?