Basement framing with radiant tubing
Hi all,
First time poster. I am slowly completing the build of our lake cottage. As part of the build, I laid pex tubing in the concrete slab with eventual plans for heating. I am now into framing the basement but not sure how to adhere the base plate to the concrete floor without using concrete nails and potentially piercing a tube.
I have thought of using PT lumber for the base plate and glueing but I’m sure someone has a better idea.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Peter
Replies
Well, you leave the PEX at least 6" from the perimeter so you don't have to worry about it. If you already skipped that part <G>, you can just glue the plate down and tie the studs into the existing foundation wall as needed (say, every 4') to keep things honest if the glue ever lets loose. (Warning: I just made that last part up, but this is not a supporting wall, right? If it is, ignore that advice.)
FWIW, you pretty much have to use PT lumber for the plate when it contacts a concrete slab per code where I am. I understand they let you isolate regular lumber in some places tho'.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Everything fits, until you put glue on it.
Thanks Mike.
In our region (Ottawa, ON, Canada), you can use a gasket under standard lumber but obviously this will not work if I am glueing. Also, I do have the 6 inches around the basement edges but I am more concerned about the separating walls in the center of the basement.
Cheers,
Peter
Ah - non-perimeter walls.
You can sometimes find the tubing by wetting the floor a bit and turning on the heat. If the tubes are shallow enough, they make a "map" as they dry the water off the floor. If you know the tubes are, say 2" deep, you can drill and tapcon 1" deep without losing *too* much sleep. ;-)Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PAEverything fits, until you put glue on it.
We do this all the time. Use PT wood and PL Premium construction adhesive. We chalkline the floor and set the plates in a generous application of PL.
Lay concrete blocks on the wood for weight until the adhesive sets. If you can do a few at a time, you don't need many blocks.
Give it a few days to cure and then nail your partitions. Don't even think about driving nails into the floor!!
find somebody with infared camera problem solved. if not glue and make tight fit at ceiling
You could use steel studs. They are priced competively, easy to use and most importantly they are bang on straight and stay that way. BEg borrow or rent a hilti and use one inch nails. Surely you tied your tubing to mesh more than one inch down?
Have a good day
Cliffy
Even the best tied down tubing can float up in a pour. we generally don't glue down our interior baseplates until the roof is on and all the door bottoms are cut out then just walk around level and square everything how you like it and outline all with that Bostick Home urethane panel adhesive. It's a water set high solids stuff like gorilla glue only in a quart tube, non-shrink and sticks even better to wet wood than dry. Also leave 100 lbs presure on the tubing through construction so you can find any leaks while the perp is still on the job. If you use 1/2" pex and some numnut does pop it you can chip out the concrete around it (it will be shallow) and cut it through, slip a piece of dishwasher hose over the outside and clamp over with hose clamps and patch the floor.
I had a client put water and heat on a slab during construction for the comfort of the workers before the house was insulated. Ice storm came and took out power and dropped trees over access to the site so he couldn't get in with a generator. I had one freeze at the edge of the slab where the piping entered and another out where he had placed a laid-in 1x4 for some kind of decorative inlay trim detail. Chip chip, nip and slip. No problem. Once you put them on a heat exchanger to isolate the floor water from the potable you can dial the pressure in the floor down to 20 lbs so the leak potential is pretty well minimal anyway.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."