What is a Floating Wall?
Floating walls are walls that are constructed to shift slightly when the floor or ceiling within the space expands or contracts. While looking like any other type of wall, a floating wall is outfitted with plates along the bottom of the framing. The plates make it possible for the structure to move slightly up or down in order to accommodate contractions or expansions without creating any cracks in the surfacing of the wall itself. A wall of this type is often used in basements or other spaces where a concrete slab is used for the flooring. In all situations, the floating wall is never a load bearing wall. Rather, its function is normally to adequately enclose an area of the space for aesthetic purposes. The surfacing on the wall can match that found on the load bearing walls in the room, and will be undetectable to everyone other than professionals who know how to tell a load bearing wall from any other type of construction. When learning how to build a floating wall, one of the first