It is becoming more and more popular here to hold head to head competition in a league format. And, another was to start tonight. I have been enjoying the Petersn Point league I am in, and wondered about this one.

So, I went to the lanes early to snoop, and found the House CLOSED. One of the workers, who knows me, let me in, where I found a large section of the dropped ceiling, lying on the floor.

It seems that over the years, they have attached lights, speakers, hang banners and a bunch of other stuff from the grid of the ceiling panels. And, it finally gave way, crashing on the approaches of a dozen lanes. Not only did this section fall, but the ceiling was just hanging in the rest of the House in either direction.

the Manager said they will have it fixed by tomorrow. Ha, being in Construction for a number of years tells me it will take 24 hours just tosecure or remove other places that are in jeopardy. To fully rebuild the ceiling will take some time.

As I talked with the laneman, he also showed me a panel that he picked up wit speaker wires attached, and a metal box, containing circuitry for the cosmic bowling lights. Seems over the years, a lot has been attached to the ceiling without being attached to the roof trusses. The ceiling grid is NOT structurally sound to support that weight.

I now wonder, this is probably the same technique that other Houses use as well. Glad no one was injured.

Absolutely Dennis, without a doubt I think you are right. The quick addition of cosmic equipment to make a buck is probably more the standard then not. When Cosmic Bowling became a hit, every one jumped onto the band wagon at once and I doubt many of them took the time to think about structural integridy.

Erin

Agreed, I am positive one of my local centers has done the same thing. I was there during the install and not once was the drop ceiling tile taken off. They just screwed right into the ceiling grid and away they went.

Look out below! lol...

Mike Holmes would have a field day.

Yeah, you can probably look at a week to hang the ceiling but any inspector is going to want to have a look at what they're hanging stuff on first so that's gonna take some time as well. . .

(I'm assuming a pretty decent sized center, having to strip the old and remount new from a clean area)

My house was smart about the cosmic thing...they put in the cosmic stuff as part of a major renovation that took up a whole summer (the same time they put in the synthetic lanes), and everything is still up today.

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me, being in construction myself and seeing what some of the so call pros try to get away with much less those that don't know any better. I would say to legally and correctly do it plus have all the auxiliary audio/visual equipment properly supported is a several week job. Depending on how old the grid is it might be very difficult to find any that matches in that could mean completely replacing the whole ceiling. Yeah I'd say the center has their hands full with this and having it fixed overnight isn't probable.

Now the grid and support wires are rated at a certain amount, can't remember what I've seen and it's more than just the weight of the ceiling. It's probably twice that but that is spread out over the whole ceiling and not a bunch of weight in one spot.

The lanes reopened. The maintenance guys did the repairs. The section that fell, was replaced, and I was assured that they resecured the adjoining areas, so they were safe.

The extra weight in the ceiling was caused by the old telemonitor system. there was a TV camera over each lane that taped the ball path on every shot that could be replayed on the overhead monitors. The system had long ago been abandoned. But, all of the cameras were still in a false drop ceiling boxed at the foul line. All of the cameras have now been removed as well.

The Center I mostly bowl in has a leaky roof. During league one night it was raining hard which caused a big bulge in a ceiling tile directly over the desk area. It never did pop while I was there but they did have to put a bucket under it to catch the drops that were leaking through it. A few weeks later once again it was raining hard during league, but this time no leak. I asked if the proprietor finally fixed the roof. They said no, he just put the bucket up in the ceiling so the tile doesn't get wet again.

Quality workmanship there VFF57

Ingenious. I am never surprised to see what some people do to "fix" a problem.