I recently had a home built with pex piping and will begin finishing off my basement shortly. Even though I have a 9ft foundation, I still plan on finishing the ceiling with sheetrock as my goal is to make the basement ceiling as high as possible and feel more comfortable like another home down there. My question is for any knowledgeable plumbers out there on what advice or precautions I should take with sheetrocking the ceiling. I understand there could be a leak at anytime, but are there certain areas where I should consider an access panel?

I do plan on photographing to scale, the ceiling in case any future plumbing work would need to be done, but would rather not clutter the ceiling with these access panels and the likes.

Any valve in the ceiling should be accessible. If you have valves, buy metal, fireproof-rated,l access doors and install them in front of each valve. Also, make sure you have Nail Plates installed on each ceiling joist where pipe penetrates wood member. Also, you want to have access to drain clean outs. For clean outs, just leave hole in drywall and buy Clean Out Cover to cover it. Otherwise, you should be OK to proceed with drywalling...

Milo gave good advice. I always recommend drop ceilings in all new houses, in the basement, but everybody seems to want sheetrock. I must admitt, I would want sheetrock in my own home for the finished look. Drop is just nice for future maintenance and future remodels. In a new house, just make sure to have access to valves and cleanouts as milo said. If no valves, or cleanouts, then just sheetrock and you should be fine for years and years.

I am pretty fortunate with how my basement turned out after designing my home. I live in the country so the ejector pit as well as the sump, water softener, well pump and fuse box have small separate rooms. Ejector pit on one corner and the others at the other end. The valves are in the corners too for outside spigots, so that's covered. The same goes for my mound system alarm and cleanout. Are access panels recommended where the pex goes up into say the bathroom or laundry? I can't really think of anything else to be covered, my support beams as well as water heater and furnace will be enclose, though the furnace/water heater will have a mirrored closet door and 2 access panels for the valves and temp setting.

Sounds like you are set to sheetrock entire ceiling of basement.

All should be fine. Just make sure there is a leak test done on all water and drainage lines before sheetrocking. If test proves succesfull, then you should be able to sleep well at night. No worrys. Take care.

I know this will sound dumb, but how exactly is the leak test done?

Did you do the plumbing yourself, or was it done by a contractor? If by contractor, they should have done a leak test already. If by yourself, there a few different options. For water lines, just turn water on to house, and watch for any leaks. If all is dry for a few days, then you are good to go. For sewer, you can just run a lot of water down each drain, and watch for leaks. This is just the easy way to test. You will need special plugs to do any good testing. Can plug all drains at base of stack and fill drains with water, or do a smoke test, or air test(would require closing complete system off). Lots of possibilitys. I think you would be fine by just going the easy route. Hopefully the other plumbers here will give their advice.

The plumbing was done by contractors. Thank you though for letting me know how to do a leak test, it's great to learn new things like this as I'm trying to be the best "handy-man" as I can! Thank you and hope you had a Merry Christmas!

Gus: I assume you are using house plumbing in your house every day. So, inspect pipes in the basement carefully before covering ceiling / walls with drywall. If you don't see any sign of wetness or active leaks, cover up.