construction question

[keudiven]

I know this is going to be a silly question, but it would be just stupid of me not to ask. The 08 season is shaping up to be my first. I know how to build the walls per se, but I am not entirely sure how to achor them to the floor. In a rented building I can't imagine that I would anchor them into the floor. Do I basically have to build the haunt on top of a sub floor?

[UnDeRTaKer313]

What i do is put beams on the top of the walls connecting many walls together, and the wieght of the walls stops them from moving. Also the actual layout of your walls can make them stronger and you wont need to anchor them to the floor.

[Jim Warfield]

Whether or not you will need to fasten them to the floor depends upon two factors: What kind of customers will you have? (Rammy, runners, reactors!!)
What kind of a show will you be putting on? High startle? Low startle? In-the-face scares?
You may have some customers who would ram into almost any wall and leave the wall in second place after the collision, but if you are not scaring them they won't be ramming into the walls now will they?
Build your strongest wall across from your best scare, you can lighten up the construction methods where they are just walking, wandering through.
I had a Very flimsey maze made from thin, hollow core doors I paid 25 cents each for, but nobody demolished any of them in 4 years!?
They might be scared down the hallway but not into the hallway's flimsey walls, therein lies the difference.
Also think ahead as to what might happen if the wall gets pushed out? Will cross-beams be falling on their heads then?
Very heavy old furniture within the maze can also serve to anchor a wall with just it's weight alone, unless someone gets Really crazy in there.
I have also strung steel cable overhead and hung wall sections from it. Use substantial sized steel cable though.

[Greg Chrise]

Wall Anchoring

Undertaker is correct. One thing that can be done in addition is to roll out carpeting first although bare floors do work fine. The weight of the wall digs into to the carpet and keeps the whole system from moving about. On a concrete floor that is bare, you will need to go through and occasionally put little shims to make sure the weight of the wall is indeed transfered to the floor. Lots of props keep people away from the walls.

There might indeed be the occasional added flooring, even decks to screw to, a central corridor that actor use to get to places can be beefed up as the back bone of the whole structure and occasionally the top lumber bracing system can be tied into existing building beams and structures.

I've been thinking about adding some rubber to the bottom not only to stop possible skidding of the wall system but, to keep it up out of or from absorbing, water, spilled drinks that the actors aren't really supposed to be pouring on the floor, spilled fog juice, spilled bottles of fake blood, spilled lunches and beverages that once was inside patrons.

No matter how low key your show is you will inevidably run into that group of 6 that are all hanging onto each other and weigh 300 pounds each. The leads have to hang on the walls just to stay upright and the movement is like literally like letting a bull lose in there. Just the weight of the walls can put up with this with overhead bracing tieing everything together but, sometimes any design has limitations to where there are many walls and just a few.

The ultimate would be to have the whole thing up on a deck. Think of all the things that can be run underneath and effects coming from lower levels. Expense wise a good floor system costs more than the whole haunt.

Haunts are generally rode hard and put away wet rather than sanitized or taken to the car wash. Employees must wash hand before returning to work.

[mindtumor]

Also, I have gotten away with driving a short nail into the floor, this takes away some of the side to side wiggle. If you do this though you have to make sure to use a small enough nail that the head will not be above your bottom 2x4 for safety, you don't want there to be any chance someone could fall on it. The nail doesn't drive into the concrete it just kind of digs into it enough so it doesn't move easily.

[Greg Chrise]

Hmmm

Golf cleats for haunt walls?

[Jim Warfield]

Just like Ghengiss Khan built some city walls by piling up dead bodies and pouring cement type mix over the corpses, invite several vampire friends over , have them lay on the floor, drive wooden stakes through their cold hearts, drive the stake right through the vampire into the floor, then super glue the actual walls to the vampire. There. All fastened down!
Clean up and tare down is so simple and easy, just open the curtains, let the sun in and vamps smoke away..gone!

[Jast223]

2x4's going above the path connecting the walls together should do it and at a particular room Cross the 2x4s in a "X"connecting the 4 corners.