out of plumb wall – can i furr out at screw intervals?
hopefully a simple and easy question :-).
my studs are out of plumb by about 5/8″ over 8 feet. I will be putting kerdi board on it and it is my plumbing wall. the wall is flat horizontally. it is not load bearing.
tapering shims to make this work would be very difficult for me (if not impossible). some of the studs have plumbing attached (or blocking) so sistering an entire 2×4 is not possible.
i used drywall shims to make one of my walls plumb and flat, and used wet shimming for another wall. however, this has me stumped.
could i add shims (maybe about 6″ in length), doubling/tripling up where needed (to ensure plumb), to only the areas where the kerdi screws will go? The kerdi board would be properly supported where screwed in, but there would be empty space between the board and the studs in certain areas. or perhaps do something like i did here with pieces of 2×4 in the attached pic on the leftside stud to provide backing for screws at intervals?
kerdi board needs screws every 12″.
thanks.
Replies
Putting 6" shims every 12" is easier than shimming the whole thing? Use drywall shims along the whole of each stud and be done with it.
unfortunately i wasn't clear. the shims would be 6" long b/c i'd have to double up and triple up, etc on them in a stair-step type of shimming as it gets more out of plumb as I go up the stud.
Here''s how I do drywall shims. They are cardboard somewhere between 1/32 and 1/16 inch thick. Put an 8' straight edge against the stud to be shimmed and fasten in in place plumb. Slide a single piece of shim into the narrowest gap. Put a pencil mark where it fits, labeled 1. Now slide two in and mark that 2. Keep doing this until you get to the widest gap. Fasten one shim where there are marks 1 and greater. Another shim where there are marks 2 and greater. Another for 3 and greater, etc until all the gaps are filled. This is actually easier to do than to explain. The stud will be shimmed along its entire length.
Here's a posting from the forum in 2004 from a guy with the moniker "Mitch" about drywall shims and his techniques for "stair-stepped" shims:
"The really slick thing about them is that they're made in layers so you can split them if you need something a little thinner, or you can peel off more at one end than the other and make very precise tapered shims. Say you want a 4' long shim that tapers from full thickness to almost nothing - make a shallow knife cut through the paper about 6" from the end, peel away a layer all the way to the other end, make another cut across the peeled surface about 6" from the first, peel that away, etc, until you have a very finely 'stair-stepped' taper over the entire length."
Why not sister 2x4's and cut them to avoid the obstructions? I think it's lot easier than super shims.
thanks everyone for your replies! Ed's reply is really cool and something I hadn't considered. for next time (if there is one which there probably will be) i will give this technique a try.
this time i was able to rip thin strips (min 3/16) and then i wet shimmed, with a little extra thinset over the area where the shims met and also in the area less than 3/16 out of plumb.
it seems to have worked well. i basically used mike's technique but with my strips and tacked the strips up with brads.