Best way to cut off bottom of studs?

[Tony]

I'd do it this way. It will be effective and be very easy and quick to do. Not sure I'd screw from outside, I'd have to see it.

[beecrofter]

It sounds like a rather small shed, can you lay it on it's side and add your plate beneath the plywood and nail through it into the studs.

[keith]

The sheathing then won't cover the plate.

[Evan]

LOL... Add a decorative trim board at the bottom of the sheathing...

It is not rocket science... Even though someone who would try and cut out the bottoms of studs in a shed to install a plate is trying to make it such...

Adding the plate under the plywood is the best option in this case... Since there is no structure to support the roof temporarily as the wall studs are cut... You would have a difficult time getting the plate in under the studs after you cut them...

Best option is to combine several of the solutions offered here:

Install plate under plywood, nailing into the studs with long enough nails to grab... The supplement this with the blocking between the studs which are screwed into the plate underneath the floor...

~~ Evan

[clare]

Use deck screws instead of nails

[jameswaters]

This is not a kit. It's also much bigger. 12' X 16' and 10' high. The walls are all 3/4" plywood, and when they started to shift off the floor, they were very heavy to get back in place. The roof is 2x6s spaced 12" apart with 3 of them sandwiched together in the middle of the roof. The floor has doubled 2x6's spaced every 12" and the outer edge of the floor, they' spaced six inches apart. The shingled roof has 3/4' plywood under it.

I bought this shed where several houses were moved away, or torn down, because of being in a flood plain, the county made them move. The shed was to be sold or demolished. I got it cheap, but whoever built it, really did things strangely. Moving this shed about 20 miles was quite the ordeal, the things is amazingly heavy with all that excess dimentional lumber on floor and roof and all that 3/4" plywood. Yet, they hardly attached the walls to the floor. One 2" drywall screw only into the plywood. By the time I got it off the trailer, the walls were coming off the floor and I had to bolt angle iron to the walls and floor on the exterior to keep it from coming all trhe way off the floor and collapsing with that heavy roof. Even more strange is that the builder put the 2x6 roof joists INSIDE the 2x4 walls.... Not on top of them, but inside them, then he added a horizontal 2x4 against the studs on the inside to hold them up.

The walls are standing right on top of the floor, so I can see the edges of the plywood from the outside. So, there's nothing holding the walls to the floor except my angle iron right now, and even a few of them pulled loose when I was levelling the floor. When it rains, water runs across the floor because the water runs down the wall and comes in under the plywood walls.

I'm not going to tear it down and start over, just patch it together so the walls are attached well to the floor and I guess I'll have to just caulk around the edge to keep water out. Although I did think about using some sort of steel or aluminum trim around the base to cover the edge of the plywood floor and push it up under the wall plywood. That will keep water out.

I have never seen anything built like this. I have built lots of things over the years and this is just not right. Yet, it's a nice shed, I just need to fix this walls to floor screwup. Heck, just levelling the floor made a whole corner nearly slip off the floor. I had to add more angle iron strips. The other thing, the guy must have spent a fortune on all those 2x6's and treated 3/4" plywood, yet he only put about 12 screws in each full sheet of wall plywood. I'm just going to add some galv nails, as well as put furring strips on all the plywood seams.

[keith]

...which will do a fine job of trapping water. Next week: rot.

[HerHusband]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like it would be a lot easier to cut 2x4 blocking to lay between the studs. You could screw one block to the floor, then drive a couple of screws through the stud into the end of the blocking. Add the blocking in the next stud bay, and continue. You'll end up with the same 2x support along the bottom of the wall, with a lot less work and potential damage to the existing structure. Nail the siding into that bottom row of blocking to tie it all together even more. You now have a bottom plate you can attach drywall or other wall covering if desired.

Good luck!

Anthony

[Tony]

Stick flashing up under the plywood sides. You could also bend it out and add a 1x and bend the flashing over the top and sides of that if that was needed. Any caulking job would always be half assed and leak. Flashing, not much else would fix that. You can even get some colored stuff and paint it to match the shed. I wouldn't try painting bare aluminum.

[HerHusband]

Wrap the walls with roofing felt (tar paper) or building wrap, then add siding or a layer of thin rough sawn plywood to cover it all. You can use "Z" flashing if you can't find sheets tall enough to reach from top to bottom.

Another option... Unscrew the plywood from the studs, add 3/4" furring strips to the studs, then reattach the plywood with longer screws. Brace the building and you can do one or two sheets at a time. This would let you extend the plywood over the floor structure to keep out leaks, then add "Z" flashing at the top and add a strip of plywood to make up the difference.

If there's only 12 screws in each sheet, it almost sounds easier to dismantle the shed for the supplies, then rebuild it the way it should have been. Assuming the rest of the shed has so few fasteners, it should come apart with minimal damage to the materials.

Anthony

[HeyBub]

I must be missing something too. Why does the OP WANT a base plate?

[Evan]

Umm... NO... Deck screws are NOT structural... In actual construction they are ONLY used to attach the decking boards down to the joists... You CAN NOT and should not be using decking screws to attach the framing elements to each other... That is what lag bolts and carriage bolts are for... Strong metal with decent thickness is required when you are going to be relying on the connected pieces to support weight and deal with any sort of forces like wind or snow loads...

Use nails to attach the plate to the studs, they are thicker and stronger than decking screws... If you were going to add auxiliary blocking between the studs after installing a plate underneath the studs, it would be ok to attach those to the plate using screws because the blocking is not meant to be structural at that point, it is being used to allow for the ease of attachment for some sort of interior wall sheathing...

~~ Evan

[Evan]

Not if you install the trim board correctly... And no one said the trim board had to be made of wood, a lot of contractors are using PVC for exterior trim these days...

~~ Evan

[keith]

It doesn't matter if they're stainless steel if they let water channel into the framing.

[jameswaters]

Because the guy who built it just stood the studs in the floor and put

2 inch drywall screws into the plywood floor. Mind you, only ONE screw in each stud, and it only penetrated a quarter to a half inch into the plywood. On top of that he built a super heavy roof structure with 2x6 rafters spaced 12" apart, and three of them sandwiched together in the middle, 3/4" plywood decking and shingles. I moved the shed 20 miles. It's amazing the top did not fall off the floor, but when I unloaded the shed, the walls started to come off the floor and I had to do some emergency bracing with angle iron strips bolted to the walls and floor. No, I do not intend to drywall it. Just need to get the walls secured to the floor, especially since we gat bad storms around here at times.

[RicodJour]

You're over-analyzing this, and you're not understanding the loads. If metal connectors can secure a joist, they can certainly hold down a stud. What exactly is the problem with using a 2x4 metal connector and using screws? You'd be done by now and would have spent a total of ~$25.

The first objective is to tie the studs down - use metal connectors. The second possible objective is to compensate for some studs not being over framing. I don't think you'll have a problem with the plywood floor deflecting from the studs since you said the joist spacing at the perimeter is 6" OC. In any event, unless the studs have unequal loads (how?) they won't move individually. If you're _still_ concerned, throw some more nails in the 3/4" siding. That will take care of any differential shear force, which, by the way, is non-existent unless you're moving the shed!

One objective, $25, an hour, done.

R

[Evan]

Because _SCREWS_ are NOT STRUCTURAL... You would need lag bolts or carriage bolts to attach structural parts to each other...

What part about that is difficult to understand ?

~~ Evan

[RicodJour]

Sigh. ALL screws are non-structural? Do you even know what structural means? No offense, but you're talking out your ass. Are all structural components _bolted_ together? I guess you must have a tough time getting a contractor to bid on your specifications.

Simpson Strongtie, the metal connector manufacturer, manufactures and sells (STRUCTURAL!) screws.

But the choice is not at all limited to Simpson's products.

There is no such thing as a fastener that is listed as 'structural', as structural means different things in different applications. The only pertinent factors in the choice of fasteners are the loads, materials involved, price, ease of installation and the ambient/ environmental conditions. There are almost certainly both screws and nails (and bolts) that will fulfill all of the objectives in almost any situation, with the determining factors usually being price and ease of installation.

R

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

I prefer nails, myself- but Structural screws-

And the main point is that the OP is going through a whole lot of angst over a bottom plate that is not going to do a thing to hold the shed together. Ricodujour's method is better than hacking things to hell and slapping a useless 2x4 under the studs.

Jim

[RicodJour]

Hmmm, I stand corrected. I don't think I ever saw a fastener listed as 'structural', but the ones you linked to have the word structural right in the name. Maybe that's because they're "Uber-grade"... ;)

Over-analyzing, over-reacting, and then over-building is a waste of time and money. It's bad engineering.

R