Where are the floor joists? Is the rim joist installed? Have you talked to the builder about your concerns?

I am the builder ... DIY project ...I have done all the work myself. I was just putting up the rim board before I start putting up the floor joists ($8K worth of them laying in the driveway).

Really, I am just trying to find out how much of an error is acceptable. I can pull the board down with some clamps ... let the floor have 1/2" of wave ... this is only a shop and the floor is only an attic so I don't mind this. I just want to make sure I am not missing something and that leaving the error will not cause something else to happen that I don't know about.

You have eight floor joists laying in your driveway?

(Humor)

You could trim the studs that are high with a sawzall and re nail the plates to them. Then you would have a level wall. Stretch a string across the top of the wall to see which studs need trimming.

With any construction: you fix an error immediately, or figure out how to compensate - never wait for it to propagate all the way to your structure. So rim is off bad but can be handled. Your floor can not be off and wavy, your roof should not be off everyone will see the waives in your roof.

Like BobH said: take a sludge hammer and knock off tall studs to make rim lay flat. Hit the rim hard, even if it is nailed to make it flat and level. Alternatively take the entire nailed section(s) below it down. [no more than couple good sludge hit]. You are not going to loose any studs. set your rim level and reframe below.

Shim it.

Thanks guys! Sun is up ... 28 deg ... heading out right now. I will take a look at how bad it is and see what is best .... maybe a combination of driving down, cutting and shimming.

I was sooooo careful to make all the studs the same. Just hate that concrete was not nearly as good as I thought.

I should have gone with my original idea of putting a row of blocks around the edge. I could have leveled them.

Thanks ...

The floor joists will need to be shimmed at each location as necessary so that the floor decking will be level in both directions. A laser level would help you see where you are. Rent or buy one.

If you can trim the studs that are high then the plate will be level and you won’t need to shim any joists or the side rim joist. Since it appears only the middle couple studs are high I’d trim them with the sawzall and be done in about a half hour.

You need to shim below the bottom plate to make sure your walls are level, that is where you compensate, not at the top plate. Some DIYers who aren't the best concrete finishers even choose to have 2 sill plates - a treated one shimmed, then raise the wall with it's own plate on top of that. Here it sure looks wavy:

Your rafters will be sitting on the top plate (or if chosen to be on top the floor diaphragm) so it will bite you later if your top plate/floor joists are wavy - translate to a wavy fascia and ridge line, shingles/metal roof panels with gaps under.

Note the rim joist is not as big a deal as the joists being off, you got a 1/2" here and there on this wall, but maybe you are 1" or more off when you get to another wall.

I agree that you need to check all the walls and see what is up and what is down. If you only have this one high spot I would still trim 5’ of top studs rather than shimming 100’ of bottom plate. If there are lots of places that are high then absolutely shim the bottom of the walls up. And stretch a string tight from one corner of the top plate to the other corner to check or use a laser.