Thread: redoing out-of-square stud wall

Originally Posted by JontyG

Hi All,

I'm in the process of renovating the kitchen. One of the walls is waaaay out of square, which is going to make life very difficult when the time comes to install the kitchen cabinets.

How far out is it? Sometimes you can use shims to more or less "square up" a wall.

Basically the wall is a brick veneer with the stud wall being tied into the brick wall with wire tie-ins. It is an external wall on the ground floor of a double storey. The framework I want to replace spans about 4m.

I was really hoping to make up a new stud wall, pull out the old studs and noggins and fit the newly made stud wall square to the adjoining walls.

If you mean make it on the ground and raise it up into place, then you are talking about replacing the header and footer as well as the studs. For that, you will want a "temporary" header as a brace up top and several vertical braces holding it firmly in place.

So some questions:

Is is likely to be load bearing?

Quite likely. In fact, almost certainly, as it is an external wall and most external walls are, by definition, load bearing. Yours looks to be. Check in the attic and see what kind of header is lying on what on top of the second story.

If so, is it possible to remove the bulk of the studs and noggins, leaving the outer studs and a couple near the middle standing to support the weight while the new framework is fitted around these, then pulling these out to replace with new?

No. You will have to place temporary supports under the header BEFORE pulling out the studs and noggins. This is also a good time to check the second story floor for level as you may be able to jack it up a bit if needed.

What about the tie-ins - can i just re-attach them to the newly fitted stud wall?

Very likely.



Attached are some pics of the existing wall that I want to square up.


Thanks,
Jonty

If the wall is out of square, then your brick wall may be out of square as well. Maybe you should think about using one of the adjoining walls as the one to "square up" instead of that external wall. [Sorry, wish I knew more about the actual measurements.] By that I mean, is it out of square with the adjoining wall? Or is it "wavy" across the span?

G'Day JontyG,

I'd be inclined to doing something like

1
Remove the present noggins.

2
Siamese new Studs which are Square,
[ Or at least, to SQUARE up the present wall ]
Siamese these New Studs to the existing Studs so that the "NEW" wall is what you require.

3
Replace the old Noggins after they have been trimmed.

4
This might require a new PARTIAL Top or BOTTOM Plate before the above.......????

I'd just cut packers for each stud so the wall surface ends up square.

Thanks for the quick replies guys

The wall is not square with the adjacent walls.

The issue I had, is that the floor in our kitchen is being tiled to a point that abutts our adjoining dining room that is going to be done in T & G floorboards. If I packed the wall out, by the 70+mm required to get it square, it would push my cabinets out to a point that was supposed to be within our dining room, and the end of the planned breakfast bar would not line up with the end of the tiled area of the kitchen...make any sense...

Anyway, I've spoken to the tiler who is currently working on our floor in the kitchen, and he has kindly agreed to extend the tiled area out by 70+mm, so now I can just pack each stud to bring it out square.

Thanks again,
Jonty

Originally Posted by echnidna

I'd just cut packers for each stud so the wall surface ends up square.

So, you call shims "packers" eh? Good to know. Learn something every day.

[I'm still put off that I didn't win the cubby house. ]

HB,

Your Packers are what we call Wharfies; aren't they?

Yup, the Green Bay Packers are a gridiron team. Gridiron is what we call football.

Bob, you mean you've heard the term 'siamese' before? We say 'sister'