are joists necessary? yikes..! Pls help

witeroze started this discussion · 8/1/2009

Hello! My x-pole is on its way, and I'm feeling kinda stupid now. 😲 1) I have very limited space and was thinking of putting it in the center of my room. That'll be the only way I'll have enough dancing space. 2) I know nothing about ceilings. I live in a condominium with popcorn ceiling that seems steady. It's hard to tap it with my hand because of the texture and I don't wanna ruin it, but when I tap lightly it all seems solid & I don't hear hollow/solid sounds. 3) Is it really necessary to find the joist things? What happens if I don't? -I was thinking of putting a piece of cardboard under my ceiling so the texture won't get ruined when I put it up. Arrggh I dunno what to do! And to make things worse, I have the kind of dad that would get a heart attack if he comes home one day and sees a pole in my bedroom... so I have to literally take it down everyday before he comes home & hide it. 🙄 😀 I really appreciate your advice. 🫡

7 replies

Veena · 8/1/2009
YES joist are necessary!!!!!!!!! You could wreck your ceiling, You need a joist for any pole, even those you don't remove! One girl used a magnet to find the stud/joist. I have tapped with the little rod tools you get with the pole, when I had popcorn ceilings. There is more info on setting up your pole and finding joist under THINKS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU INSTALL UP YOUR POLE.
JenLFG · 8/1/2009
find a joist!! even if you have to move furniture! you can get hurt, damage your house (rip open the ceiling, bust out a window if its close, break furniture.....) & its just not worth it to not find a joist! you will be better off shifting a room around a little bit rather than getting a broken bone, you wouldn't be able to pole then & damages to your house could be very costly!
Foxy_Rei · 8/1/2009
Yes ditto to needing to find the joists... SaschaPoles has some pictures in her profile of what a pole can do to your ceiling. The good news is, though, joists are every 16 or 24 inches apart - those are the 2 most common/standard measurements. So it's not like there's only 1 of them in a room and you absolutely have to put your pole there. Once you figure out which direction your joists run in the ceiling, you can measure out from a corner either 16 or 24 inches, and give a tap at each spot to see what the spacing is. Once you know if it's 16 or 24, you can measure out from the wall to find where abouts a joist is so you know where to put the pole. 🥂 But still use another, more definite, method so you can get the pole centered on the joist once you know about where it is! If your nervous about the ceilings: most of the people here that have popcorn ceilings haven't had problems with their pole and the popcorn. Don't be afraid to give them more than a "light" tap (like you said you were doing) because a) your pole is going to do much more to it than a light tap would and b) tapping will help you find a joist. Also a pole uses pressure to put it up, and I would think it would be more "sideways" (like scrapping) that would do damage to it, anyway.
JenLFG · 8/1/2009
If you scrape some of the popcorn part off you can fix that easy! Lowes or homedepot should have it.
SissyBuns · 8/1/2009
Get a joist finder. They're really cheap. 😉
witeroze · 8/2/2009
Thanks for your advice everyone. Joist finders seem expensive though... I was searching on the Canadian Tire website and a good one is $50 (canadian dollars). And yeah, that broken ceiling looks really bad lol. I'll find a joist thank you very much... I'll try tapping once more.
kasanya · 8/2/2009
I picked up my stud finder at Home Depot for about $20 Canadian. There were more expensive models available, but the basic (aka cheapest) one I found did the job just fine. Just make sure you remember to check if it comes with a battery or not. It's really annoying to have to turn around and make a second trip just for a battery! LOL.