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attaching a 2x4 to concrete slab

To: shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: attaching a 2x4 to concrete slab
From: Scott Hall <sch8489@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 23:16:00 -0400 (EDT)
our new (to us) house has a soon-to-be garage.  this part of the house was
a living room, then a carport.  now that we've got it, I want the carport
to have garage doors.  the opening was already framed (sorta) by the
previous owners, and only needs some spacing and the doors installed.

part of doing this will be framing the middle support for the doors, which
the p/o didn't do.  to do this, I've got to attach the framing to the
floor/slab.  at first, I thought I had to drill into it, and started to do
that.  I was thinking I'd have to drill out a hole big enough to drop a
bolt into, then fill in with concrete, with the bolt sticking up enough to
attach the sill plate to (like with a new slab).  but, looking the the
hardware store, it seems I have other options.  I saw two ideas:

a) a sort-of expansion bolt.  I drill a smaller hole, lay the 2x4 on top
of it and nail the expansion nail/bolt through it.  it goes through the
2-by and expands once in the concrete.  what I wonder about this is, will
it *really* hold it down as tigh as I want it to?  this thing didn't look
very sturdy, and I thought it would bend itself instead of anchoring the
wood to the slab.  as well, the longest I could find was 2".  that doesn't
seem long enough to really hold this down.

b) a rifle-cartridge-powered nail gun.  this seemed to use .22 cal
cartridges to fire nails into concrete.  same concern here.  the nails
didn't look very substantial, although they were long(er).  wouldn't a
nail in concrete be easy to just pull out?  I keep thinking I need
something with threads here.

anybody know about these, or otherwise have experience with attaching to
an already cured slab?  I want to do this once, right.

thanks

scott


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