How to make a frame from profiles for plasterboard wall cladding

Recommendation points

• Consideration of the work of the wall frame
• Installation of guide profiles
• Walking around openings and corners
• Assembling the supporting structure of the wall
• Additional fastening of the frame and completion of assembly

“Dry” wall cladding with plasterboard is as ubiquitous as wallpapering. Indeed, with such a pace of execution and quality of alignment, the assembly of the supporting base cannot but have difficulties. And they are, so today we will reveal the secrets of assembling wall profile frames.

Consideration of the work of the wall frame

Before proceeding with the set of a substructure for wall cladding, you should make sure that the functions of the profile frame are complete and correct. It is assembled from PN and PS profiles of different standard sizes. For false walls without a high operational load with one sheathing layer, a 60 mm kit is used, consisting of CD-60 and UD-27 profiles as rack and guide elements, respectively. Such a wall is self-supporting, but nothing more: no attachments such as cabinets, shelves or a TV should be attached directly to the frame or sheets..

False walls with internal insulation, two- and three-layer sheathing with sheets and an additional load-bearing function are assembled on a frame from the same profile sizes that are used in the construction of plasterboard partitions. These are sets of PS + PN 50 and 100 mm. To summarize: the width of the profile used determines the mass of the wall and sheathing in particular, sets the required bearing capacity.

Another important parameter of the wall frame is its frequency, expressed by the pitch of the rack elements. The more often they are installed, the more rigidity the wall acquires and the higher its resistance to pressure and impact. For single-ply sheathing, a 40 cm pitch is used due to the fact that one sheet can be pressed relatively easily. Two-layer sheathing is denser, so the spacing of the posts can be increased up to 60 cm.

It is not entirely clear why there is a need to reduce the number of attachment points for a two-layer skin, because it has a greater weight in comparison with a single-layer one, which means that it needs a greater bearing capacity of the frame. However, the strength of profiles of the 50th standard size and larger (and others are not used in multi-layer cladding) is quite enough to hold up to four layers of drywall.

If you do not understand the meaning of cladding with several layers of gypsum board, most likely you do not know about the ratio of the characteristics of the walls. An additional layer doubles the insulation from structural and airborne noise, allows you to lay up to 50 mm of additional insulation and significantly reduces the thermal conductivity of the cladding itself. The combination of these factors makes multi-layer cladding a very popular solution, which has been adopted by almost all conscientious contractors..

Installation of guide profiles

The assembly of the frame of any wall begins with defining its main plane. If the wall has niches, the main plane is the one with the largest area. This plane is easily projected onto the floor and ceiling with two base lines, from which all further readings will be conducted. Once these lines have been identified and marked, they should be checked for consistency with the overall geometry of the room and make any necessary adjustments if necessary. For convenience, you can also make adjustments for the thickness of the sheathing layer and the preferred finishing material so that the markings accurately indicate the line of installation of the guide profiles.

They, as the name suggests, determine the direction of the rack elements. For fastening the guide profiles to concrete bases, plastic quick-fix dowels with a pitch of 35–40 mm or direct-mounted steel dowel-nails are used. Fastening to wooden structures, shell rock or foam concrete is performed with hardened self-tapping screws 50–120 mm long, depending on the density of the material. The fixing step can also be reduced to increase the fixing rigidity.

To compensate for structure-borne noise, thermal expansion and shifts during building settlement, a layer of damper material is placed between the guide profile and the bearing surface. Special self-adhesive tapes made of medium density polyethylene foam can be relatively easily replaced with self-cut strips of insulation from the same material and glued onto regular PVA.

Structural insulation from the floor is done in one layer, and from the ceiling in two or three. In total, there should be approximately one layer for every meter of wall height. The fastening of the ceiling profile is not rigidly performed, so that the frame guide can “walk” in height in the range of 2-3 mm.

Walking around openings and corners

The plane of the frame can be disturbed by niches, window and doorways. In these places, the linear configuration of the guides changes to correctly traverse the junctions..

In doorways, the guide profile rises to form a rectangular opening in the skin. Its dimensions either exactly match the installation dimensions of the door block, or determine the dawn of the slopes.

Window openings can be bypassed in two ways. The opening “to the floor” is made in the same way as the door, however, it is preferable to install window sills in parallel with the assembly of the frame. This is done to break the vertical guides. Thus, the lower part of the niche is made with strictly rectangular edges, and the upper one has the necessary dawn for mounting slopes (2–3 °).

Simple closed niches are more convenient to assemble after mounting the main plane of the frame. Usually, the rack elements are simply skipped at their locations, however, if the niche extends to the floor, on it the guide profile must be broken and shifted to the wall to the depth of the niche. In this case, additional external and internal corners can be formed, at which the profiles are tightly adjacent to each other with the formation of a common gap (the edges are cut at 45 °). The reason for this is as follows: it is impossible to know in advance exactly how the frame of the embossed wall will be implemented, which means that the rack elements must be able to be installed in all possible positions.

Assembling the supporting structure of the wall

Rack profiles are inserted into the cavity of the guide profiles, the length of which is 15 mm less than the distance between the inner shelves of the guide system at each specific installation location. Such a gap is necessary for easier insertion of the rack into the rails at an angle and to compensate for linear deformations..

It is important to adhere to a specific installation sequence for maximum performance. First, all rack profiles are installed without any fastening. Next, direct suspensions are fixed to the wall with a step recommended for the type of wall (30-60 cm), the attachment points are outlined, the profile is shifted to the side and the wall is conveniently drilled with a puncher.

The uprights return to their previous position according to the precautions that have been carefully marked on the guide profile. The profile is fastened with two notches or self-tapping screws in the lower part, but from above it must remain fully mobile. So that the racks exactly correspond to the step of installing the sheets and do not tilt, jumpers are installed in advance for joining the vertical elements of one row. If the CD-60 kit is used in the frame, the jumpers are cut in lengths of 340 mm, inserted between the posts and attached to them with halves of a regular crab. In this case, it is enough to install the first, basic rack vertically, the rest need only cursory control.

If the frame is dialed 50 or 100 mm in size, the lintels are made with a guide profile. Its edges are cut along the outer shelves and folded in different directions. The workpiece is inserted with one bent edge into the cavity of the rack, the other edge is superimposed on the adjacent rack. If the sheathing posts are oriented with the central shelf towards the sheathing, which is found in non-insulated walls, the edges of the lintels must be bent in one direction so that the side edges are flat. The jumper is simply inserted between the shelves and fastened to them along the adjacent flat surfaces.

Please note that it is categorically not recommended to cut the jumpers with “tongues”: the caps of the self-tapping screws are normally pressed into the drywall, but the plate, especially from the central shelf of the rack-mount profile, will certainly form a bump on the surface of the sheathing.

A number of simple rules apply to bypassing vertical corners:

1. Outside corners with a standard size of 50 mm and above are assembled from two guide profiles nested towards each other.
2. The same corners from CD-60 are formed sequentially: first one side is sheathed, then a profile is attached to the sheet release and the adjacent sheet is sewn.
3. All internal corners are also assembled sequentially: first, the wall is sewn up, then a second corner insert is inserted and fastened, and the adjacent wall is sewn up.

Additional fastening of the frame and completion of assembly

At the end of the installation, a careful alignment of the plane of the rack profiles is required. Often, for this, an additional rail (or a pair of such) is used, with which the racks are twisted together to bring them into a common plane. The rail is telescopic and consists of two guide profiles nested into each other.

After the temporary connection, the edges of the straight hangers are bent, attached to the posts and bent back, after which the additional slats are removed. Sections of the frame adjacent to niches and openings also need strengthening. In these places, at intervals of half a meter, horizontal crossbars are added to exclude punching of areas potentially subject to destruction..