I am framing out an 8ft non-load bearing wall in my basement. It is required to use floating walls in my city. When the basement was finished in 2000, they used metal studs and the walls are not floating. How important is it to make this one wall floating when the rest of the basement walls are not?
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1"It is required to use floating walls in my city" - it seems you wrote the answer already right in your question– whatsisnameOct 27, 2020 at 6:33
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@whatsisname is saying, is that if you want this construction to pass a building inspection, it better be boyuant (or whatever a "floating wall" is).– FreeManOct 27, 2020 at 12:00
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1A floating wall is a wall that's not snug between the framing above it and the slab or subfloor below. It's generally done in basement finishing to avoid transferring loads from the upstairs onto the basement slab -- that slab is not a footing and it's not meant to carry point loads from above. Googling floating wall and looking at some illustrations is probably an easier way to understand it.– Jeff WheelerOct 27, 2020 at 12:30
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The city won't grant a permit due to low ceilings. My point is that if none of the walls were done to code originally and I don't have sheetrock cracking or doors bowing. I wouldn't think replacing a short wall to code with a floating wall would make a big difference. Floating walls are used due to soil that expands up to several inches, but not all houses are impacted since the soil runs in veins. If anyone has experience with this, I would love to hear your thoughts.– juntaOct 27, 2020 at 14:21
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Regardless of what was done in the past, when you are doing some new construction you must follow the current building code rules unless there is an exception of some sort. Why don't you discuss this with the local AHJ and understand what the inspector is going to be looking for?– jwh20Oct 27, 2020 at 14:50
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