Ugly Ceiling Gets a Facelift

Upgraded Ceiling

Winning the “Ugly Ceiling Contest” gave Lisha Kill Middle School new ceilings for free, allowing them to improve their classroom in a much needed way, while not impacting their tight budget.

Facilities director Mike O’Neil of the South Colonie School District in Albany, N.Y., is the winner of the Armstrong “Show Us Your Ugly Ceilings” Contest.

The contest, sponsored by Armstrong Ceiling & Wall Systems, offered building owners and facility managers an opportunity to win a grand prize of 1,000 square feet of Ultima ceiling panels by submitting a photo of a stained, dirty, or damaged ceiling in their facility.

O’Neil submitted a photo of a sagging ceiling that was coming apart above a classroom at Lisha Kill Middle School in Albany. After determining that the damaged middle school ceiling was the “ugliest” ceiling entered in the contest, a panel of Armstrong ceiling experts awarded 1,000 square feet of Ultima ceiling panels to O’Neil.

Winning the contest enabled O’Neil to replace the ailing ceiling without dipping into his tight maintenance budget. “We try to replace as many of these old ceiling panels as we can, but we’re on a tight budget,“ he explains. “That’s why I entered the contest — to see if I could win some new ceiling panels.”

The facilities director received many compliments from school officials after the Ultima ceiling was installed. “The new ceiling came out great,” says O’Neil, who was able to quickly replace the old ceiling panels using the existing grid. “It looks beautiful. It made a huge difference in the way that room looks. It’s like night and day.”

In addition to their smooth, clean visual, Ultima ceiling panels feature new Total Acoustics performance, which is the ability to provide both sound absorption and sound blocking in the same panel. To deliver that performance, the panels have a Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) of 0.70, meaning they absorb 70 percent of the sound that strikes them.

www.replacement-ceilings.com

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Tennant Company Launches Autonomous Floor Scrubber

    Cleaning equipment and solutions provider Tennant Company recently launched the new X6 ROVR, a mid-sized robotic scrubber designed for large commercial and light-industrial environments, according to a news release. The autonomous machine can clean up to 75,000 square feet peer cycle with minimal needs for manual assistance.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Introduces Claude for Education

    Anthropic has launched a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • Spaces4Learning Launches 2025 New Product Awards

    Spaces4Learning is now accepting entries for the 2025 New Product Awards! The program’s goal is to honor the outstanding product development achievements of manufacturers and suppliers whose products and services are particularly noteworthy in helping to improve K–12 and Higher Education learning environments.

  • KnowBe4 Releases Report on Education Sector’s Preparedness for Cyberattacks

    Cybersecurity platform KnowBe4 recently released a new research report titled “From Primary Schools to Universities, The Global Education Sector is Unprepared for Escalating Cyber Attacks,” according to a news release.

Digital Edition