Stud Shoes: What are They?

Stud Shoes Required

As an owner-builder you are constantly bombarded with new building terms and slang. To help with this, armchair builder has created a glossary at the bottom of this blog and on our main website with some typical construction terms.  However, every now and again we miss one.  When you come across a building term you don’t know, please let us know.  The word of the day is stud shoe.

What is a stud shoe?  Anyone?  Anyone?  No, it has nothing to do with Justin Timberlake.  It also has nothing to do with your feet.  When it comes to homes and building, a stud shoe is a piece of metal used to strengthen a wall stud that has a large hole drilled through it (typically for a plumbing drain).

The picture above shows a drain for a kitchen sink running through a 2×4 wall.  This drain line requires a 2″ hole to be drilled through each of the studs.  In our picture, our plumber has installed metal nail protectors over the stud face but did not install stud shoes as required by our local code.  Luckily, we caught this on our daily quality inspection (see The Builder’s Daily Construction Guide for details on quality checks to be performed).  So, our plumber will need to remove the nail plates and install the stud shoes.

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For our particular case, we will need two single and one triple stud shoes.  The triple shoe is for the three studs that are sandwiched together.  Typically, we only install stud shoes on load bearing walls.  However, there’s nothing stopping you from installing them on a non-load bearing wall if you think it needs support.

Check with your local building department or builder consultant to find out what your local code requires.  Your code will tell you how much stud area must be removed before stud shoes are required.  Be sure to add these shoes and labor to install them into your lumber supplier and rough carpenter’s scope of work.

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