Basement framing around wall beams or posts
Lightning5555
| Posted in General Discussion on
I’m in the process of purchasing a house that has two of its basement walls braced with vertical beams/posts spaced about every 2 or 3 joists. I’m looking to finish the basement at some point and I’m curious how the correct way to frame the wall would be. The beams/posts extend from the basement wall about 6″. For the base/sole plate/board, am I able to frame between the beams/posts and have the outside edge extend slightly past the 6″, but not frame out and around the beams/posts themselves? Or…do I have to start my sole plate outside that 6″ making the distance from the wall around 10″? Going in and out around each beam would not look good with the amount of beams. Thanks for any help!
Replies
First lets clear up a couple of things. #1 I assume you are talking about VERTICAL STEEL Beams that have been installed as a corrective measure for a bowing foundation. For sake of clarity, lets call them POSTS because most would see the word BEAM and presume its horizontal spanning some opening in a wall or or floor.
No reason you cant frame between the posts. It will take longer to make 3ft wall sections than making a whole wall in front of the posts but its your time so if the space is more important to you than the time...go for it.
BTW, make sure you figure out which of the post is the farthest out. I can't imagine they will all be identical so find the one that stands the most proud of the foundation and work your wall straight off of that one. Don't assume that you can just stand a 1/2" proud of all of them and get a straight wall. Easiest way to do that is the same way they do a masonry wall. Go to the first and last post on the wall and attach a string with a piece of 3/4" scrap behind the sting at both the first and the last post. Then measure the distance between the string to the face of each post. The one with the smallest distance is the one that you want to work off of. Set your offset distance you are comfortable with off of that one and let the offset to the rest of the posts vary as they move in and out.