I am beginning to finish a walkout basement and have run into a few challenges I hope someone can help guide me through.
There are several plumbing drain and gas lines running along the top of my foundation wall that prevent me from attaching the stud wall top plate to the joists above. If I get too creative, I will throw off the distance to the tub and stool rough-in drains causing more time, expense, and headaches.
Any suggestions on how I can (within standard building codes) create a solid stud wall working around this issue?
BTW, the walls must be floating due to the shifting soil in Colorado.
Replies
I'm not sure what you mean by "floating". But I would run your top plate as far as you can on either side of the obstructions and place a stud at the end of the top plate and then drop the plate below your obsrtuction between the full length studs, and fill in with shorter studs below the lowered top plate.
Alternately, you could notch around or cut out a portion of the stud to go around the obstructions and nail the studs alongside the floor joists above [using no top plate]. Where your wall runs parallel to the joists you may need to put in some blocking to attach the studs. Your walls are not structural, so I don't see a problem with not having a full stud depth where notching may be required. Remember nail plates in these areas though to protect those pipes.
I did a basement in Westminster for my brother. First time I had to use floating walls. Ran into a similar problem. I attached a large "L" bracket at the top of the stud below the plate on 2 of the studs (I believe it was a 6 or 7 ft run where I couldn't attach the top plate to the joists. I then attached the brackets to the foundation wall and once I hung the sheetrock, it was fine.