What is the best way to depict Floating/Hanging walls?

[Haunch]

Does any of the Chief Architect products provide native support for building floating/hanging walls in the basement? Here in Colorado, it is code to have floating walls in the basement, and am curious if there is an easy way to depict floating walls using any of the Chief Architect products. If there is not a native way to do so, has anyone had any luck displaying the framing elements of a floating wall?

Similarly, is there any product version that can help display locations for fire blocking of floating walls? Fire blocking is another code requirement here in CO.

[joey_martin]

Do you have a detail? I have done homes in CO and cannot for the life of me think about what is you need?!?

[Greg_NY61]

I'm not sure how to display this in CA but I know what you trying to do... The way this is done in reality is you leave the larger gap on the sides and the top of the wall and you use longer nails... you leave at least 2" space on top and sides, because the movement will definitely exceed 1/2-1". When the trim being installed, you nail the casing into the jamb only and not into wall. this way everything can be moved with the floor movement.

 

Here is floating wall detail, I think you better off just making a Cad detail in CA instead of trying to frame that way using CA

 

 

[Haunch]

I'm not sure how to display this in CA but I know what you trying to do... The way this is done in reality is you leave the larger gap on the sides and the top of the wall and you use longer nails... you leave at least 2" space on top and sides, because the movement will definitely exceed 1/2-1". When the trim being installed, you nail the casing into the jamb only and not into wall. this way everything can be moved with the floor movement.

 

Here is floating wall detail, I think you better off just making a Cad detail in CA instead of trying to frame that way using CA

 

 @Greg_NY61 ... the image you posted is exactly what framing a door with floating walls looks like.  I was looking on how to show the "floating" aspect of a wall in CA. With the expansive soil in Colorado, walls in the basement over a slab are required to be hung from the joists, then secured to a pressure treated board nailed into the concrete slab using spikes through the footer board of the wall, so when the slab heaves or sinks +-3 inches the slab will not push up on the framed wall and thus pushing up on the joists (and the rest of the house)

 

 

For the information of all, I got a response from support, and here is their response:

As a follow-up, I spoke with the head of our Training department, and he advised that he has seen this question before. In that case, what he recommended using a pony wall with the a lower portion of 7 1/2" that was a custom wall type essentially comprised of an air gap with sheetrock on the inside, where the bottom plates and spikes were added manually (his example image attached). Again, keep in mind that this was done in the Premier X7 version, as the tools to accomplish it are not available in the less advanced Home Designer programs.

 

 

Thank you all for your responses, but support provided the answer I was looking for.  (Originally they suggested I post my question here, but then followed up with exactly how to do it in CA)

[DRAWZILLA]

Here in Calif. we have to tie everything down, tie the wall & floor, and roof down ,and everything stays put.

[Greg_NY61]

Perry, this is only a requirement in areas where you deal with expansive soils, I only did one job being in business almost 30 yrs, where Architect required to make a floating basement slab. Here is another image.

[HumbleChief]

Never seen that Greg, what keep the walls from falling?

[Joe_Carrick]

This is similar to a lot of details when building Log Homes. 

 

Usually with a Log Home, the gaps are at the top so that as the wall logs shrink, the floor joists can move down without contacting the actual wall framing.  When a framed wall intersects a log wall the studs are provided with saw cuts (vertical) that the nails are driven thru into the logs.  As the logs shrink the nails simply slide down without bending.

 

In other cases "Jacking Bolts" are used at the bottom of Post to lower them as the Wall Logs Shrink and the floors and roof come down accordingly.

[Alaskan_Son]

Like Joe, I am familiar with similar details for log homes, but I've never seen the gap at the bottom before.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but I can't think of any benefit to putting gap at the bottom other than MAYBE not needing a moulding up at the ceiling. Is there some other benefit I'm not seeing? Not ripping the idea at all, would sincerely just like to know.

[Greg_NY61]

Larry, the wall is basically screwed into the top plate and you drill holes through the bottom plates, making sure you have a snug hole ( using same diameter drill as spikes) so there is a tight fit preventing the wall from moving and drive 40-60D spikes and you have a pretty solid wall.

 

With that said you don't see much of that in any area that I know of around here or heard about anyone using floating wall system. Frankly speaking even the job I did I think the Architect went a little bit over the top with that design, but it was an interesting experience and I was doing some research on that at the time and what I found fascinating, is how they do the "floating slabs" for that type of construction. Some call them "suspended slab" (there is other types and ways of doing this)  but this one involves a reinforced slab with a beam resting on piers with a "collapsible void"  under entire footing. The footing is actually separated brom the soil and the whole footing is fully suspended with the slab spanning between the beams and the beams are spanning between piers... while piers go down anywhere between 6-10' to pass all that expansive soil which is basically affected during seasonal moisture changes and that is what causing all that movement... IMO who ever came up with this design is a fk genius.