This homeowner in Bellingham watched me frame a wall for an hour, then asked if I could just 'glue it'

I was putting up a load-bearing partition in his basement remodel, had the plates marked and the studs cut. He stood there the whole time, sipping coffee. When I started to grab the nail gun, he pointed at a tube of construction adhesive on my cart and said, 'Wouldn't that stuff be faster and quieter?' I had to explain why 16d nails in a specific pattern were kind of important for holding his house up. Ever have a client question the most basic part of the job while you're doing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathan19313d ago

Honestly though, is a basement wall really that critical? It's not like it's holding up the roof. A good bead of adhesive and a few screws would probably do the same job without all the noise and mess.

dianagreen13d ago

Oh man, I wish that were true. My basement wall disagreed last year and decided to bow in. Suddenly my floor wasn't level anymore, the door upstairs wouldn't shut, and I had a crack you could fit a pencil in. That adhesive idea sounds like the kind of shortcut I'd try, right before everything goes wrong. Trust me, a basement wall holds back a crazy amount of dirt and water pressure. When it fails, you notice.

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