Family Room Duct Soffit
The ventilation system has to be finished and inspected as part of the HVAC before we can drywall. We started the soffit for the ductwork in November when my brother was visiting. I finally finished the framework today.
Finished Family Room Soffit
I finally kind of got the hang of marking the metal channels and cutting the studs to fit between them while using self drilling screws to connect them.
Pre-assembled section of soffit
The sections are basically two identical “ladders” joined by struts. The struts had to be hand cut to overlap the outer channels and hold the two sides together. My brother had me buy decent metal cutters. He recommended these that have replaceable blades and they really work well. The struts had corners cut out. First marked equally with a square then cut on each side to the back then down the side to the first cut leaving a tail to screw into the side channels.
Preparing support struts
Cut out corner on strut
One strut is at each stud in the front and there are two or three across the back of each section. A strut is positioned over the joins at the section ends to reinforce them too.
Now that the soffit is completed, the next step is to finish pushing the flex duct through the soffit and connect it to the metal duct work and to the ERV.
Flex duct in soffit
Also to put together the metal duct work that feeds the flex duct to and from the ERV and terminates in the vents.
Assembling Metal Duct Work