Maximising opening / securely fixing infill wall and doorway

[andyscotland]

I'm having a little wobble about the fine positioning of the internal stud walls of my garage conversion. There's a very fine tolerance on the width of the corridor past the en-suite vs the space within the bathroom.

 

The nearer I can get the room door to the edge of the old garage, the better this tolerance gets (due to the angles involved, it's a tricky layout). NB this is now an internal door - there's a new extension on the front of the garage.

 

The original plan was to fill the whole opening with a stud wall, fixed to the blockwork at one side and the house brick at the other. I don't really want to fix up into the lintel (it's already been drilled in a couple of places for a historic - rubbish - conversion and I think best to leave well alone now).

 

I now think I could save about 27mm - significant in the bigger picture - by only building the stud across part of the opening, framing the door opening with an 18mm ply box. That does however mean the studs will only be fixed at one side, so not very sturdy.

 

I think I could solve that by screwing some heavy angle brackets either side of the head plate, staggered along the length, so that they clamp hard against either side of the lintel above. I'm hoping that would be enough to keep the wall rigid at the top. The sides of the ply box would then be fixed to the last stud and to the old garage wall, so that should provide a stable/solid enough base for the final door casing and door...

 

What do you think?

 

[Mike]

Looks OK, as long as the clamps are tightly fixed - they will get well tested by door usage / slamming. The brackets will presumably though prevent the plasterboard from sitting flush with the studs, so you'd need to do something to overcome that.

 

No chance of reusing the existing holes in the lintel, maybe using chemical anchor bolts?

[andyscotland]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Looks OK, as long as the clamps are tightly fixed - they will get well tested by door usage / slamming. The brackets will presumably though prevent the plasterboard from sitting flush with the studs, so you'd need to do something to overcome that.

 

Thanks Mike. There's 25mm PIR between the plasterboard and lintel/blockwork so it'll be easy enough to rebate that to accommodate the brackets.

 

1 hour ago, Mike said:

No chance of reusing the existing holes in the lintel, maybe using chemical anchor bolts?

 

Possibly one or two I guess. Not sure how easy it would be to chemical anchor upside down though. The existing holes are very offset to one edge (one has actually chipped the edge) as they were for battens against an old set of patio doors so not ideally located for a secure fixing.