Hi, I have a brick walled basement. The bricks at below ground level have the usual white salt, or lime,that develops when there is moisture, and have been slowly crumbling because of the same moisture(I live near the lake...) and because of some lieakeage. This means every so often I have to pick up some sand-type stuff collected on the floor along those walls. I am nervous to see this and worry because I get the impression that if bricks go, my house will fall down... since I have no idea how thick these type of basement walls are, or how many layers of bricks there are, or what is it that holds these houses up. I have tried to do remedies such as keeping the rain away from the walls by means of plastic or making sure the slope goes away from the house. However the moisture inside, during the summer, is enough to make the bricks keep on crumbling. One wall has even a slight deformation inwards. How worried am I supposed to be? My guess is that having someone dig the outside and waterproof the walls would be a very highly priced job, am I not right? Anybody knows in what order? Or is there another way? I'd be so thankful for any help! Magvitum

I've been reading this forum and other help books on metal studing and am interested. Currently the requirement where I live is to build basement walls that float by nailing a pressure treated wood to the cement floor and then framing with normal 2x4's. with another horizontal piece tied to the wall framing and attached to the pressure treated wood with a spike. The frame then can float on the spike so if the floor moves the wall is not damaged. Question is how to do it if I'm going to use metal studs. Would I still need to place the pressure treated wood on the floor and then create the frame using metal studs? Am I making too much of this?