How to Straighten Up a Wall !!
If you ever had to do some upgrades on your house, you certainly know how frustrating it can be when the area that you're trying to fix is not square with the rest of your house or out level !! I've had to deal with some crooked doorways in the past or with uneven walls and floors and let me tell you that the only way not to feel overwhelmed is to stay calm and tackle one area at a time the rest will all fall into place !!
I've had to fix a garage 5 years ago that was sitting on cinder blocks foundations, but they had been disturbed a lot by the frost over the seasons !! My guess at that time was that this garage should have been built on concrete foundations instead and they could also have dug at least a couple feet deeper in the round so the change in seasons wouldn't have such an effect on the base walls !! Bottom line was that the owner was not gonna rebuild a brand new garage and he just wanted to keep it as it was and give it a face lift !! he asked me to recover the outside of the structure with board and baton !!
Because the walls were bowed I had to strap out the garage with shims first and only after I could install the siding on a straight surface !! Because there's only a slim chance that you will ever have to deal with walls like that I thought I would use theses pictures ( After all it can not get much worse than that ) !!
Something to remember when you are strapping anything you don't want to go any further than 24" on center between your straps I would say that the best distance on center is 16" !! To make sure that your straps are straight the best guide is a string and 3 small pieces of 3/4" blocking !! First you pre-assemble and attach the corner pieces nice and level, then you run a string line from one end to the other of the surface you are trying to straighten up and then you space the string out of the surface with the two blocks !! You using the 3rd block to check at different points and make sure the block is not moving the line when you slide it behind, but barely touching it !! It will take a lot of time to straighten up a wall like that, because you have to check several points from top to bottom !!
Once all the strapping is nice and straight, its only a matter of installing whatever type of siding or surface you want to install !!
The same idea would work just as well if you had to straighten up a floor before installing a sub floor or a wall before drywall !! The only thing to remember is to always make sure that the string is really tight, almost like a guitar string, especially for a floor, because if you are running it for a long distance, the gravity will bow it down in the middle !! Otherwise that's pretty much all there is to it !!
Have fun !!
Sorry for the poor photo quality my phone wasn't that great at that time !!
If you have any questions on how to get started or along the way just let me know I'm sure I can guide you through the process !!
I've had to fix a garage 5 years ago that was sitting on cinder blocks foundations, but they had been disturbed a lot by the frost over the seasons !! My guess at that time was that this garage should have been built on concrete foundations instead and they could also have dug at least a couple feet deeper in the round so the change in seasons wouldn't have such an effect on the base walls !! Bottom line was that the owner was not gonna rebuild a brand new garage and he just wanted to keep it as it was and give it a face lift !! he asked me to recover the outside of the structure with board and baton !!
Because the walls were bowed I had to strap out the garage with shims first and only after I could install the siding on a straight surface !! Because there's only a slim chance that you will ever have to deal with walls like that I thought I would use theses pictures ( After all it can not get much worse than that ) !!
Like I said earlier this particular building was pretty crooked, it took me a lot of pine and shims !! I built the middle out 4" in the center of the longer walls to only the strapping thickness on the ends !!
Something to remember when you are strapping anything you don't want to go any further than 24" on center between your straps I would say that the best distance on center is 16" !! To make sure that your straps are straight the best guide is a string and 3 small pieces of 3/4" blocking !! First you pre-assemble and attach the corner pieces nice and level, then you run a string line from one end to the other of the surface you are trying to straighten up and then you space the string out of the surface with the two blocks !! You using the 3rd block to check at different points and make sure the block is not moving the line when you slide it behind, but barely touching it !! It will take a lot of time to straighten up a wall like that, because you have to check several points from top to bottom !!
Once all the strapping is nice and straight, its only a matter of installing whatever type of siding or surface you want to install !!
The same idea would work just as well if you had to straighten up a floor before installing a sub floor or a wall before drywall !! The only thing to remember is to always make sure that the string is really tight, almost like a guitar string, especially for a floor, because if you are running it for a long distance, the gravity will bow it down in the middle !! Otherwise that's pretty much all there is to it !!
Have fun !!
Sorry for the poor photo quality my phone wasn't that great at that time !!
If you have any questions on how to get started or along the way just let me know I'm sure I can guide you through the process !!
Comments
Post a Comment