Attaching Furring Strips to Concrete Basement Wall by HomeAdditionPlus.com
Hi! I am Mark Donovan from HomeAddtionPlus.com. Today, I am going to show you how to attach furring strips to concrete basement walls. Typically when finishing a basement, you need to mount furring strips to the concrete basement walls to allow the dry walls to attach to the furring strips. In my situation today, I am actually in the process of mounting an electrical sub-panel to the concrete basement wall. And again to do this, I need to first mount furring strips to the concrete basement walls and then plywood and then eventually the electrical sub-panel.
Today, I am going to show you a few tips on how to attach furring strips to concrete basement walls. A key tool for installing furring strips on the concrete basement wall is a hammer drill. This particular model will put out 51,000 blows per minute. It includes an adjustable depth cage to allow you to set the depth to how deep you want the drill bit to go into the concrete. And you typically use a carbide tip steel drill bit. A drill then also comes in handy for actually attaching the concrete fasteners to the furring strips in concrete walls. And finally you need eye and ear safety. When working with a hammer drill or any type of drill, the noise is very loud particularly with the hammer drill and there is always a risk of getting concrete into your eyes so make sure you wear eye and wear protection.
For the actual concrete fastener I am using a 3/6” x 2 ¾” long concrete fastener from Topcon. This is basically just a screw anchor designed to go in to concrete walls. In addition, there are sleeve anchors that work just as well into concrete walls. But for my application, the screw is perfect. You want to remember when installing a concrete fastener to the wall of a screw type, you want to penetrate into the wall about quarter inch deeper than the penetration of the screw itself. So, I am looking to putting about inch and a half depth hole into the concrete wall because I am assuming we are going to about an inch and a quarter deep into the concrete wall with the screw. I am also going through a 2 x 4 type stud which is about inch and a half thick so that is why I am using a 2 ¾ inch screw today. For the actual drill bit width, I am using a drill bit that is just slightly smaller than the screw itself. In this case, this is 3/16 each of a screw and I am using a 5/32” type of drill bit.
So, to begin with, I will place my furring strips where I want it and then with my hammer drill and drill mode, I will penetrate the wood initially and then switch to hammer mode to penetrate into the concrete. With the hole drill, I now use the vacuum cleaner just to suck out the hole to make sure it is free from any debris or dust. Now, attach the concrete fastener to the 2 x 4 and into the concrete wall. You do not want to over tight it or else you will strip the concrete hole. So, before you apply an additional screw to the furring strip, use a level to make sure that the furring strip is indeed plum or perfectly vertical. Now that it is, we will drill the next series of holes and complete the fastening of the furring strips to the concrete wall. Now, if too solidly matter of furring strips is attached in concrete walls, we can now mount in my case plywood to them or if you are finishing a basement dry wall.
So that is all there is to mounting furring strips to concrete basement walls. Good luck with your basement-remodeling project or you electronic panel furring strips. If you have any other home improvement questions, visit us at HomeAdditionPlus.com today.
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