Construction - Stud Spacing???

[Midpack]

So we’re in a new (to us) house, and I go to hang tool racks on the garage. I assume the studs are on 16” centers, perfect for the rack system with 48” sections I bought.

The good news is the garage walls are unfinished drywall, so I can see exactly where the studs are. The bad news is the actual spacing is:

16”-18”-20”-18”-19”-15”-19”18”-24”-22”

I can work with it, but...

Fortunately I can assume all the studs are a perfect 16” on center in the house itself though.

 

[pb4uski]

That is wierd. I think it would be much harder to build a wall that way rather than just 16 on center.

 

[joeea]

So we’re in a new house, and I go to hang tool racks on the garage. I assume the studs are on 16” centers, perfect for the rack system with 48” sections I bought.

The good news is the garage walls are unfinished drywall, so I can see exactly where the studs are. The bad news is the actual spacing is:

16”-18”-20”-18”-19”-15”-19”18”-24”-22”

I can work with it, but...

Fortunately I can assume all the studs are a perfect 16” on center in the house itself though.

This is a new house? Or just new to you?

If the former, talk to the builder... now.

 

[mountainsoft]

My in-laws 100 year old house is built that way. The wall studs are fairly consistent at 16" on-center, not perfect, but close enough. However, the floor joists vary quite a bit from 16" to 18" or so. It's almost like they just eyeballed it instead of measuring. That made it very difficult to install insulation that is intended for 16" spacing. I didn't want to buy 24" insulation and cut it down, so I just cut lots of short sections and placed them sideways in the joist bays.

Of course, that old house still has the rough sawn lumber. Splinters galore!

 

[RunningBum]

Welcome to North Carolina.

 

[braumeister]

You just never know, do you?

We bought a house back in the 90s that was designed by an independent architect who built it himself. Half of it was 16" centers and half was 20" centers. All of the joists were 2x12s. It was a very distinctive and unusual design that DW absolutely fell in love with, so I had to deal with some "interesting" challenges from time to time.

We made out OK in the end though. Sold it for about 135% of asking price to a guy who lived 2,000 miles away and also fell in love with it just from the pictures he saw on the MLS website.

 

[RobbieB]

My studs are all over the place too. Couldn't care less, that's what stud finders are for.

 

[ERD50]

It must be my OCD tendencies, that would drive me nuts!

But the older I get, the less I muck around with that stuff, so maybe I'd just shrug it off. Seems to me it would be easier for the builders to keep it consistent, just use a jig to hold the stud in place while you nail it?

I've come to appreciate the "french cleat" approach for hanging stuff from a wall. As long as you can span two studs, the hanging object can go over it, and you can slide it side-to-side if the object is wide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cleat

-ERD50

 

[ransil]

Last 2 houses the garage rafters were random, think they were 1 or 2 short and made up the difference

 

[HFWR]

How do the workers hang sheetrock with that random spacing?

 

[ERD50]

How do the workers hang sheetrock with that random spacing?

Poorly?

-ERD50

 

[Midpack]

This is a new house? Or just new to you?

If the former, talk to the builder... now.

New to us, built 3 years ago.

BTW. Since the OP, I’ve drilled for and hung 96” of racks, and the studs are indeed off as I thought. No big deal with tool racks, but I wonder how the drywall guys marked to drill on studs?

 

[street]

Are those measurements right in the middle of the wall moving horizontal? Not at top or bottom Right?

That is interesting someone would do that. I have built numerous homes and not sure why that would be done that way. Lol

 

[pb4uski]

New to us, built 3 years ago.

BTW. Since the OP, I’ve drilled for and hung 96” of racks, and the studs are indeed off as I thought. No big deal with tool racks, but I wonder how the drywall guys marked to drill on studs?

Whenever I've done drywall I mark the floor and ceiling where the studs are. I usually do the lower piece first, pin it to the studs with a few drywall screws and then mark the studs with a straight edge between the stud and the mark on the floor. Then do the upper piece and extend the line from the lower piece to the ceiling.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Yeah, I had that issue when I bought and hung a rack in an unfinished basement earlier this year. I cut a scrap 2x4 to span between two studs where I wanted to mount it.

 

[zinger1457]

Sounds like the contractor who built the house must have a cordial ($$$) relationship with the local building inspectors. There are a lot of reasons to use standard 16"/24" stud spacing besides that it's likely a building code requirement. Properly fit standard insulation batts/rolls, proper load bearing, drywall sheets and exterior sheathing should have the sheet edges on the center of a stud, .....

 

[joeea]

New to us, built 3 years ago.

Yikes. It scares me to think about whatever other hidden wonders exist.

If this is in a development, you might want to talk with some neighbors about all that.

 

[pb4uski]

Sounds like the contractor who built the house must have a cordial ($$$) relationship with the local building inspectors. There are a lot of reasons to use standard 16"/24" stud spacing besides that it's likely a building code requirement. Properly fit standard insulation batts/rolls, proper load bearing, drywall sheets and exterior sheathing should have the sheet edges on the center of a stud, .....

Good point.... how did they do the exterior sheathing since none of the progressions in the OP equal 48" or 96"?

 

[ERD50]

Good point.... how did they do the exterior sheathing since none of the progressions in the OP equal 48" or 96"?

Caulk. Lots of caulk!


Good point someone made earlier about insulation - if you have a wider than 16/24" spacing, there will be gaps.


OK, I never built a house, but I've framed some wall sections. It seems it would be easier to keep it standard, than to have the drywall and sheathing crew mad at you.

-ERD50

 

[JoeWras]

Welcome to North Carolina.

I was going to make the same quip.

But seriously, this is whacked. I've never seen that on a modern house in NC.

I have seen it on older houses. As a matter of fact, I was working on a late 1940s house recently (hurricane disaster recovery), and you could see the carpenters were running out of wood and started cheating on roof rafters! One side of the house was 16-16-16. Then it morphed to 17, 18 and a few 19s!

What a pain to put sheathing on that mess.

It was beautiful wood, though. Real 2x4, actual measurements, no nominal stuff here. Looked to be planed by a local mill down the river.