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I am diving into a residential steel framing project by remodeling a basement using steel frame technology at the request of the home owner. I have much experience with wood framing, but have some question about how to apply that know-how to steel framing. The basement remodel requires floating walls due to expansive soils. In building the wall, I typically use a pressure treated 2x with a second bottomplate attached with 20d nails. In this situation how would I apply the steel track systems to maintain a floating wall. I do not want to use screws to attach the two bottom plates together because they do not seem to allow as much movement for expansion. Could I apply the same technique and simply screw the bottom steel track to the second bottom plate, or is there a system already in place for such an application?
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Yes Sullivan, there is a track made for this type of situation and it is made for floating walls.
It is a top track with the legs being longer so that you can insert the regular track into it, and it floats up and down. See your drywall supply house for it.
Or you could mount your top track to the bottom of the floor joists and cut your studs about 5/8 to 3/4 short and just screw off the bottoms. let the stud just set in the track, once you hang the drywall the wall will never go anywhere because of the drywall, but yet the wall will have no restrictions at the top.
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I am diving into a residential steel framing project by remodeling a basement using steel frame technology at the request of the home owner. I have much experience with wood framing, but have some question about how to apply that know-how to steel framing. The basement remodel requires floating walls due to expansive soils. In building the wall, I typically use a pressure treated 2x with a second bottomplate attached with 20d nails. In this situation how would I apply the steel track systems to maintain a floating wall. I do not want to use screws to attach the two bottom plates together because they do not seem to allow as much movement for expansion. Could I apply the same technique and simply screw the bottom steel track to the second bottom plate, or is there a system already in place for such an application?