new construction

[mcguin]

Hello all –
Well I finally found my new location down here in St. Thomas. I will be building out the third floor of a concrete building (exterior walls, floors, and roof). I plan on building my rooms within the exterior walls. A couple of quick questions –
1/ since I will have a number of double walls – would I be better off doing one wall in steel studs and the other wall in wood studs?

2/ I am planning on the following for the wall structure – from inside out – ½ sheetrock, 5/8 sheetrock, studs (whichever recommended - steel or wood, with or without RC), R11 insulation between the studs, at least 1 inch of OC 703 or equivalent.

3/ is there any advantage to adding a 2nd layer of 5/8 sheetrock?? Or perhaps some type of sheet block product on the walls?

4/ I plan on installing a number of windows – I am looking at using 9/16 and 13/16 laminated separated by at least 8 inches – will this be satisfactory?

5/ I am planning on a vocal booth in between two double door airlocks 3 feet wide (all separating the live room and the drum room) – I want to put 2 layers of glass the same thickness as in the control room) in each of the airlock doors (two on either side of the booth) - are there problems doing this? (the space between the panes of door glass will be subject to door thickness.

6/ input on doors – planning on solid core exterior and beefing up with ???? –

With everything I am looking for the maximum in sound proofing - both ways



As usual thanks in advance for any info
Dan

[cadesignr]

I plan on building my rooms within the exterior walls.

I would hope so. Outside sucks for recording (just ribbing you!)

I want to put 2 layers of glass the same thickness as in the control room) in each of the airlock doors (two on either side of the booth)

Man, two layers of which? 9/16" or 13/16"? Even 9/16" results in a glass pane 1 1/8" thick. IN A DOOR? Holy smolly, better plan on a HEFTY custom door frame/jamb, frame/thresholds/seals and the heavyest duty hinges you can find. That will be one heavy door. As far as 13/16"...... Two layers is 1 5/8". Yeow! A door frame would have to approach 2 1/4" thick or more to hold it. Latchsets, hinges, etc would definetly be a problem. Not to mention the framing for this assembly. You better have an engineer spec this for you too, as just shutting a door this heavy can shake the hell out of a light weight wall. Personally, I think this is a bit overkill, unless your recording the WHO at midnight But, I'm no expert.

Might take a look at my plan on standard thicikness door jambs on the thread a ways below this one, about doors. Of course, this was all just dreaming for fun. This may not even qualify by expert opinion.
Cheers

fitZ

[knightfly]

1 - No real advantage in steel over wood, unless you're doing single framed walls - then, lightweight (non-structural) steel studs get the same STC as wood with Resilient CHannel - wood has the advantage of being stiffer when only one side is paneled.

3 - the extra layer of 5/8 rock is your best bang for buck - sheet block is 'way too expensive unless you're really tight on space and need the mass.

4 - Those thicknesses of glass using un-laminated plate glass would give about STC49-50 - laminated should run at least 4-5 points higher, but I don't have figures on the exact difference.

5 - As Rick mentioned, depending on size of the panes it could get pretty heavy. Glass weighs about 3 TIMES the weight of sheet rock, so that would run about 7 pounds per square foot for your intended thicknesses, more or less. A 2'x2' window would increase the weight of a door by about 56 pounds over no window at all.

6 - Biggest problem with doors is sealing, assuming solid core. Also sealing the frames around shims. That part can be done by stuffing the cracks with insulation and using acoustic caulk thoroughly on both sides, adding foam backer rod if the gaps are over 1/4" - any thresholds that are extrusions need to be filled solid - drywall mud is OK for that. The hardest seal is the threshold, using a drop threshold (seal kits run around $250-300 each) usually works best.

If you really want max isolation, plan on separate frames with separate doors, like your air locks. You didn't mention what the air space in your outer wall plan is - in fact, if you could post a floor plan and some details of any unusual parts, it would make discussion much easier.

Hope that helped... Steve

[mcguin]

thanks guys for the input - Steve - don't know how to post pics????

the walls are all framed - some of my double walls have as much as 14 inches between them - should this all be filled with fiberglass insulation, or just the space between the studs??

thanks again
Dan

[knightfly]

Right below the box where you type in your posts, there is a narrow box labeled Filename - with your pic on your hard drive, just click the Browse button beside the Filename box, navigate to your pic, double-click the filename, then click Submit - It's best if you can keep pix no wider than about 700 pixels (the Paint program in windows can resize - just open the image in paint, crop anything you don't want, then use the Image/Attributes command to check width and height. Use Image/Stretch+Skew and change height and width to the same percentage in order to maintain perspective. Once the pic is small enough, save it under a new name (to preserve the higher res version) and browse to that file for your picture to upload. No entries are required in the larger box, just click on Submit.

Sizes are limited to 150k, with the following extensions: gif jpeg jpg png tga tif

As far as wall insulation goes - convection and other air movement inside a wall are NOT your friend - I don't have any lab tested results on this, but my take is to fill it (gently) if you can afford to. If you stuff the wall cavity to the point where you have a hard time getting the wallboard up against the studs, it's too much. A light touch actually HELPS wall performance, by damping any panel vibrations... Steve