Residential Garage on Stud Walls
Residential Garage on Stud Walls
(OP)
Are there any guidelines for supporting a garage floor on stud walls? I have a 19ft x 12 ft. garage floor using 14" LVL's, 1 1/8" plywood and 4" topping slab. We have done wood floors many times and APA has some good tech info on these. I can't find any literature on supporting this kind of floor on stud / plywood shear walls and I am debating whether it's a good idea.
Thanks,
Thanks,






RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
Personally, I would never put a garage on a wood floor. Have you checked for 3000# point loads required by code? Even with concrete, it will need to be reinforced. I just did a garage on metal deck and we needed a 5" slab. We recommend strongly against these at our office. If we need to do them, typically we use metal deck with a thick slab on steel beams or concrete walls. Make sure and consider salty snow dripping off a warm car for corrosion.
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
I don't know what the details look like, but make sure it considers all the load effects.
When working with untested construction methods, it's not the devil you know, it's the devil you don't know.
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
thread507-292879: Wood Supporting Concrete
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls
For the design of the framing we typically follow a technical bulletin put out by TrusJoist (TB-105). One very important aspect is not to use TJI joists (which you are not using) as they won't be capable of resisting the concentrated load.
I would check the wood stud wall for the concentrated jacking load to verify that the studs are adequate. We typically frame this wall out of 2x6 and install blocking to brace the studs (in addition to any sheetrock, etc.) I'm not aware of any problems we have had with these garages. It's potential that the wood framing will creek as a car drives over it as the wood shrinks. I think using engineered lumber would help this somewhat.
Waterproofing is hugely critical in these installations. We typically install a water proof membrane between the concrete and the subfloor and use PT floor plywood.
IBC Section 2304.12 states that wood members need to be checked for creep loading where the non-structural concrete floor surface exceeds 4". I typically check it here anyways, but it doesn't usually govern as the members are generally quite stiff in order to meet the jacking load design.
Given the choice I would prefer metal deck and concrete, but have seen quite a few of these out of wood.
RE: Residential Garage on Stud Walls