Framing a door in a crooked concrete opening
Hi everyone hope all is well. I’m trying to frame a door in an interior concrete basement wall for a laundry room and I’m trying to find the easiest and most economical solution. The walls on each side of opening are curved and not flat. So tapconing wood against concrete would take a ton of shimming. I attached a picture for a better idea. Here are my 2 ideas:
1. Easily use 2×4 on top to create a top plate. For door jams I would place pt 2×4 as close to concrete opening as possible but not actually attach it. I don’t know if I need to somehow attach this to concrete floor or if I can simply hammer it in against top plate and floor.
2. Take a 2×6 pt board and attach it a across opening and use a sliding barn door. Not sure if the span from wall to wall would be too great for a sliding door to work and hold up. I also know that I would need to make sure the sliding door clears an electrical switch for room
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Replies
Shimming isn't that bad, you only need six screws. Drilling the holes is more of a pain than shimming.
What I would do is build a four sided frame out of pressure treated 2x6. I'd get it exactly square and plumb on a table and brace it with pieces of scrap wood on the interior. I would pre-drill holes for tapcons in the sides, three on each side, one behind each hinge on the hinge side, one behind the catch and the other two at the same height as the hinges. Then I would set it in the hole and get it level and plumb, and use temporary shims to keep it from moving. Once it was set I would drill through the six holes, put two shims behind each hole and drive a tapcon. Then remove the interior bracing.
I would cut the shims out of pieces of pressure treated.
The bottom piece I would attach with pocket screws so it could be removed after the frame is installed.
Unless it's a real oddball size I'd then put a pre-hung door inside the 2x6 frame.
Sounds like the easiest way to do it. I never used pocket screws, I'm assuming those kits are inexpenive but if I'm building the frame first could I simply screw the bottom plate into each side from underneath and just cut it out afterwords. Prehung door would be easy to do but do I have to worry about bottom of door near concrete, I know prehung is usually made of regular wood.
Yeah the bottom doesn't have to be pocket screws per se, just attached some way so that you can take it off once the frame is in place, it's just there to hold the frame square until you get it attached. Cutting through the fasteners with a reciprocating saw works too.
Unless the floor is wildly uneven just mount the door high enough so it doesn't rub, if there's a bit of a gap at the bottom when it's closed it's not a big deal. If you think the gap is too much put in a threshold. I would shim under the door casing while hanging it so there's a bit of a gap between the casing and the floor so you don't have to worry about untreated wood in contact with concrete.