I'm thinking about refinishing my basement myself. Most things involved I know how to do. But what is the currently accepted method of attaching 2x4s to a concrete floor (or wall)? Nail gun? Some kind of adhesive? Will an air-conpressor operated nailer work or will I have to use the .22 cal cartridge based guns? Thanks for any tips.

Remington makes a great nailer that operated on .22 caliber blanks. Money well spent.

Well what I have done in the past was to use the .22 gun to hold the wall where you want it then use a hammer drill, drill my anchor holes and then fasten with concrete bolts. I guess you could nail the shit out of it with the .22 nails and then just toe nail the wall to the floor joyces above but I wouldn't recommend it. I think the bolts that I used had a blue coating on them. Its been a while. I would also suggest that you use green board instead of regular dry wall, just in case you get moisture down there. Good luck, Mike

I drilled and anchored with concrete screws. Works great and, other than going through a few specialized bits (depending upon how hard your concrete is, it's cheap. That was phase one of our basement. Phase two will involve figuring out what kind of ceiling to put onto the low and irregular unfinished ceiling. We can't hang anything becuase it's already too low. Any ideas? Sorry to tromp on your thread. Is your ceiling done already? Seems like that's the hard part. Walls, floors, etc. can be done if you have some time. But coming up with a fix for an irregular ceiling seems an insurmountable task. EDITED to add that, come to think of it, I was using blue concrete screws as discussed below. Worked great with a standard cord powered electric drill.

Paint everything black up there. It will be like being in a shitty bar downtown.

A potential problem with building walls in a basement is shifting of the concrete floor or slab due to expansion and contraction of the ground. This can can be a particular problem in places like Colorado because of bentonite, a mineral that is very expansive when wet. I used to live in Colorado and refinished my basement. The proper method of wall contruction there is to build a wall frame of 2x4s, making it about 4 or 5 inches shorter than the distance from the floor to the ceiling. This frame is then hung from the joists. Glue a 2x4 to the concrete, the same length as the bottom of the frame and directly under it. Use a product called Liquid Nails to glue it to the concrete. Then drive large 8-10 inch spikes (available at any local hardware store, they will know what you are talking about) through the bottom of the frame and into the 2x4 on the floor. Predrill the holes in the frame for the spikes, to allow room for the spike to move up and down as the floor, and the 2x4 glued to the floor, moves up and down. This keeps the frame from moving laterally, and allows the concrete floor to move up and down without buckling the wall. When you dry wall, leave a gap between the bottom of the dry wall and the concrete floor. This gap will be hidden by the baseboard. Do not screw the dry wall into the 2x4 on the floor, just into the floating wall frame. This allows the floor to move without cracking the dry wall. Even with all of that, I ended up with a few minor dry wall cracks along the base of the walls after a couple of years. Your local home supply store, like Home Depot, should be able to help, and may have how-to brochures available.

Thanks for the info, everyone. There is some existing framing around the basement stairs just as sigshooter describes. What was not apparent to me was how the 2x4s were attached to the concrete slab. Say, here's a thought... What about drilling holes with my Bushmaster and some SS-109? [;)] Liquid nails sounds like the way to go since all the framing has to float.

Hammer Drills are just not necessary!!!! 22 blank guns are the BEST, but one thing that is always over looked... [b]Liquid Nails[/b] When used properly can hold just as good and only requires 12hours of support pressure. BISHOP

make it easy on yourself rent a ramset or Hilti gun from RSC shoot some angle brackets to the concrete and screw the studs to that. If you don't live in a area with bentonite you are good to go.

Just a vote for the screws or anchors. Used many times, never disappointed.

Marvl, Use redwood on the floor. Use a 'RamSet' to nail the redwood to the floor. Leave a 2" gap between your bottom plate and the redwood. Then use your nailgun to float the bottom plate to the redwood. I have built many, many houses in CO and CA. Use this method.... if your floor heaves more than 2" you have bigger problems.