Yes, you read that right, basement floor, not door. The door project is pretty much done, but I do need to put some railings on either side of the pit. That will come when I have more time, or after I fall into the damn pit and break something, namely me.
Here is what I have done so far with the basement floor. I took a 15inch long block of 2X6 and screwed it into the floor with TapCon screws. It is mid way between the left and right walls and about 7.5 feet aft of the middle of the basement. I then laid a 2X6 board on top of that middle block. The length of the long 2X6 is such that it is nice and level, touches the block in the middle and the floor a few feet out to each side. I then laid a 2X4 on top of that 2X6 and it goes fully across the basement and just touches the floor at the walls. OK, not true, although it is perfectly level, it touches the floor on one end, but is a bit high on the other end, I guess the basement floor isn't even from one side to the other. So, yes, if you have a 2X4 sitting all the way across the basement there is, in fact, a three inch gap below it at the middle, and this is 7.5 feet back from the center of the basement, where the drop is another three inches. I screwed the ends of the 2X6 and 2X4 into the cement floor with TapCons, and screwed the 2X6 to the cleat in the middle and the 2X4 all along the length where it is in contact with the 2X6. The boards are all on their flat faces and the 2X4 is along the back edge of the 2X6. I wedged in some various size and shaped blocks under the 2X6 where I could and screwed down through the 2X6 to these blocks, just to help stiffen it up a bit. I then did the same thing 7.5 feet forward of the center of the basement. So now I have these two beams spanning the width of the basement and I will eventually run 2X4 on their flat faces laying on top of the 2X6s and between the 2X4s on the beams. Does that make any sense? The beams essentially make shelves that the joists lay on, with their ends constrained by the perpendicular 2X4s. I will build another beam spanning the width of the basement at the center line. So the joists will actually run from the beams at either end, and meet on top of the middle 2X6 beam. I will install blocking every two feet under the joists to help stiffen the floor, and screw 3/4 inch ply over everything. Here are some additional plans. The middle beam will actually be split in the middle, so that I can make a trap door directly over the center drain in case I need to access it at some point in the future. The first block I mentioned is actually split in half and so is the 2X6 above it. I will be laying 2 inch PVC pipe from that opening over to the center drain. This way if the washer or furnace ever have a bad day, the water will get to the drain without soaking the entire cement floor underneath. I found that a ShopVac attachment will work perfectly as the drain inlet. I will just need to make a somewhat water resistant barrier along the utility room wall at the floor, to coax the water toward the inlet. I am also putting in a drain inlet just in front of the newly created external basement door. So if we ever get enough rain that it overwhelms the drainage out there, and reaches above the three inch step and begins to seep under the door, it will go down this drain through a pipe and empty near the main floor drain. I just cannot believe how slow I am to actually get anything done. It just seems to take forever. I was impressed with the array of tools I was using. I had a drill with a wood bit in it, a hammer drill with a masonry bit, a small cordless driver to drive wood screws, and an impact driver to drive the TapCons. Yes, I could have done this with two devices, but would have had to keep changing out bits. I damn near lost my mind at one point. I had spent a lot of time lining things up using a plumb bob hanging from the floor joists above. I only have one bob so had to keep moving it from one end, to the middle, to the far end and trying to nudge the ends without shifting the middle. I finally got everything lined up, then kicked the whole damn thing as I went to grab the drill and had to start over. I am hoping to get the center beam put in during the evenings this week, then this weekend I can slap the 2X4 joists in place pretty quickly. Cutting and wedging all the support blocking is probably going to take some time though. Just to keep dragging this on, I decided to try something with the joist spacing in a vain attempt to make laying the 4X8 sheets of plywood easier. Of course it will actually make things much more difficult, I am sure, just not exactly sure how yet. Since the basement is 15 feet wide, I could have either had one joist 8 feet from one wall and 7 feet from the other wall, then laid four full sheets from one side, and then 4 7 foot long sheets from the other side. That would put a single seem along the floor. I could have put a joist right down the middle, then cut all the sheets to 7.5 feet. In both cases, you still end up having to monkey with joist spacing at least at one place. And, in both cases you get a single straight seam. I chose to put two joists down the middle, each one is 8 feet from one of the side walls and 7 feet from the other. This way you lay a full sheet from one side of the basement and then a full sheet adjacent to that one, but from the other side of the basement. This way they overlap and there isn't just a straight seam along one joist. I then just took the empty space between the first joist, and the joist 7 feet out, and figured out the spacing for three more joists in that space. So the spacing is actually about 19 and 3/4 inches on center for the first five joists, and also for the joists 6 through 10, but 12 inches center to center for joists 5 and 6. I didn't see any reason to force a specific 12, 16, or 24 inch center to center spacing if I was going to have to play with that anyway. OK, I've killed my lunch hour. back to work. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081
