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In Colorado, as in other places, we “hang” the walls when finishing a basement. My customer wants to build a mortar bed shower basin and tile the basin and walls in his new basement bathroom….. Has anybody found a way to build a shower like this while allowing the adjacent bathroom walls to float? Thanks.
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Hey Ed,
Excuse my ignorance, but could you explain why you hang the walls? Thank you.
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Calvin,
Our soil is very sandy (as opposed to clay). As such, our basement floors will move up and down as the moisture levels in the soil rise and fall. Kinda like a hydraulic effect. Anyway, because of this, everything in the basement has to "float".
The walls that hang from the ceiling are attached to a bottom plate (that is nailed to the concrete) with pole barn spikes, which keep them secure laterally. When the floor moves up and down the spike slides through the pre-drilled holes in the bottom plate of the wall, which hangs about 1 1/2" above the the bottom plate that is nailed to the concrete.... Pretty cool concept but it can be a pain when trying to build even simple structures (the basement stairs even hang!).
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Ed,
No kidding? learn something new everyday. Gotta love it.
Here's something that I do in Ohio. For you coloradicals to understand the method, stand on your head and think of the ceiling as your floor.
Ok, here we go. Lean against the wall if you start to tip over. Hope you can read this from there.
When I have to build a wall up to the roof deck or perhaps to the bottom of the bar joists (in a warehouse) I use a metal stud track that has a deep throat. Either the studs ride in it or on occasion I will float a reg. track in pcs. of the deep throat track. The deep track is fastened to the bar joists or the roof deck. During a snow load or perhaps reroofing or maybe a new rooftop unit, the wall stays put and is not crushed as the roof deflects.
You might be able to engineer something up in the joist bays that either utilizes the deep throat track or a variation. Fasten the walls at the floor and let the top float. You'll probably have to figure a slip joint in the shower lid or some such thing, but at least the base and side walls would be secure. Whatya think?
Oh yeah, you can get down now.
Best of luck
*Calvin,That's a neat idea. Ed can float his top plate of the shower enclosure walls with his spike trick. Water supply lines can be attached to the moving wall with the flexible braided type used as risers to lav faucets from the stops.
*Ed I have worked for a custom builder who has found a way to reverse the float for hiis basement baths and showers.It is similar to what Cal suggests.Here goes and forgive me if this makes no sense at all.What we do is frame double walls around the shower enclosure. the outer walls are floated standard "coloradical" style.The inner walls that form the shower walls are nailed right to the floor,and held square and plumb with a layer of osb or plywood that is between the two walls.A cieling is framed attached to the inner walls to hold the top square.Make the inner walls about 6-12" shorter than total cieling hieght, at the cieling you'll have to run a nailer parallel with the front of the shower with a 2-3" space for the float.The seam can be covered with a piece of wood or tile trim that is similar in application to the way we do our baseboards at the floor.hope this helps jim BTW where in CO I'm in Littleton
*Calvin, are you sending coded messages or something? ..."deep throat... stud... slip joint"...you can get down...all in the same post?
*Rich,No way smart enough to do that. Remember, I'm just a dumb carpenter.
*ed et. al.,as a transplanted michigander doing my first coloradical floating wall basement finish (just over 1,000 square) i find myself in the same situation with the shower pan/wall conundrum. my remedy was/is to use a swanstone pan in mortar and a healthy expansion joint where it meets the tile.jim at great white -- please don't tell me that i need to allow for 2-3" of travel!and by the way, though i thought it strange when i started, one advantage of floating wall construction is that it takes the guesswork out of stud length in a basement where often the ceiling height varies by as much as an inch.
*I always thought that clay was the expansive stuff and if you were lucky to build on sand, nothing ever moved.I do remeber a story from a class I had in college (some of you probably know more details than I do.)In Mexico, they built a high rise on wet sandy soil. The building compressed the water out of the sand and the building slowely, over several years sunk several feet. They kept having to build new sets of stairs down to the building.Eventually, the area around this building was developed. The buildings around forced the water back under the highrise and now there is a set of steps going up to the entrance.
*Stephen, I am pretty sure that building codes call for a minimum of 2" of float,possibly 3" in Jefferson county.That may have been the builder though.Most basements I frame on slabs require the 2" of float.Sorry buddy.Ryan you are right about the clay sand thing.We do have all kinds of soils here and sometimes 2 houses right next to each other will have completely different foundation details(spread footers as opposed to caissons an sure voids).jim
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Thanks to everybody for the good input. I've been racking my brain on this one but I think I've got it fingered out now. I like Jim's "sleeve" concept. It's a cool idea..... I'll let you know how it works out.
Ed
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In Colorado, as in other places, we "hang" the walls when finishing a basement. My customer wants to build a mortar bed shower basin and tile the basin and walls in his new basement bathroom..... Has anybody found a way to build a shower like this while allowing the adjacent bathroom walls to float? Thanks.