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Trouble with staggered wall

4K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  rightit 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi,

I am in the process of creating living space from my garage, which I have described and posted images for here:
http://www.diychatroom.com/f19/another-newbie-97480/?#post604204
And here is an image relevant to the topic:
View attachment 30666
Being a garage (carport originally), not too much care was taken with squaring, plumbing and leveling. The outer wall (left wall in image) had a header and a stud wall which did not follow the header (was angled to the outside by almost 1” at the door end). The header measured as straight end to end from the living space wall (Right wall in image). I attached a 2x4 on the flat to the header front to back and plumb bobbed down to the floor, where I placed a treated 2x6, then installed all of my staggered studs. This accomplished 2 purposes:

1) It made the wall straight front to back
2) It will diminish the sound coming from outside.

All is well, but now that I’m ready to stagger the inside wall (planned from the beginning for soundproofing), I find I’m having trouble getting the 2x4 ‘fur strip’ (laid flat against the double top plate) to be vertically level and equally distanced from the outside wall. The wall itself is not plumb and the top is leaning ¼” to 3/8” toward the living space, and I’m not sure why the distance to the outer wall is varying, given that I checked and double checked my measurements from the header to the inside wall before dealing with the outer wall.
A bit convoluted, I know. So, the purpose of this post is to solicit ideas on how this can be more easily accomplished. These are the ideas I’ve thought of:
1) Build an adjacent 2x4 wall, separated from the inner wall, but I sure would like to save the space (the width of the area is just over 10’). Even a few inches can make a difference.
2) Build the separated wall out of 2x3’s, but I am hanging 2 layers of drywall (likely ½” if separated, 5/8” if staggered), and I wonder if that would be too much weight?

I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m missing the obvious here. And, if I can’t stagger it, I suppose a 2x3 separated wall would need to be braced to the existing wall, what with the additional weight of the double drywall? Again, I’d rather stagger it, but if it’s going to take me a week of tedium and frustration to maybe reach that goal, I’d just soon lose the few inches.

Any and all ideas appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark

 
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#2 ·
sounds to me like you are about to build another 2x4 wall. i don't know what you mean by "vertically level", but i assume you mean "plumb". build the new wall spot on, and secure it at the top and bottom (floor). why double sheet rock? noise? 1" of sheet rock will make elect boxes a bit more complex.
 
#3 ·
Hi jklingel,

Thanks for your response. I did finally get it right. Strategic shimming, screwing and patience resulted in a plumb and straight 'top plate'.

Yes, the double sheetrock is for noise. I don't anticipate trouble with the electrical and cat5 boxes.

Thanks again,
Mark

Mark
 
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