Hi Tim,
I am buying a brand-new house and I plan to build some walls in the basement. I see in my current house that the interior walls in the basement are nailed to the basement concrete floor. Can you please tell me how this is done?
I'm thinking that I need to drill holes for the nails, put the nails into the 2x4s that will be the base of the walls, and then lower the nails (attached to the 2x4s) into the holes with wet concrete (or some sort of glue?) in the holes.
I also think this could be a disaster with even one small error. Comments?
Ken Dalton
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Ken,
I wish all of the questions I get were this easy. A very good friend/co-worker of mine taught me how to do this 30 years ago. When I want to secure a frame wall to a concrete floor I just grab my roto-hammer drill and outfit it with a 1/4 inch diameter bit that is six inches long. I put the wall into position, drill a hole through the bottom plate and continue drilling into the concrete until I have created a hole 2.5 inches deep in the concrete.
I pull out the drill bit and brush away the pile of dust. The next step is to take two 16d sinker nails - not common nails! - and place them side-by-side in the hole in the bottom plate. Common nail shafts are too thick for this job so use sinker nails. Using my 20 ounce framing hammer, I drive both nails at the same time with short solid blows of the hammer. Both nails will begin to enter the concrete at the same time and they will grab so well you can usually only pull them out with a crowbar.
Tim Carter
www.askthebuilder.com
W3ATB