"Quiet Zone"

[Amped]

Hey, Im building rehearsal room in my back yard, its gonna be made completely outta wood, I need some way to soundproof the floor, would Owens Corning Quiet Zone acustic batts be worth a crap ot a waste of money?
24'x20' structure
2x6 joists
#30 felt
3/4" plywwod
I need something to go between the joists to stop the sound.
Thanks!

[Michael Jones]

I've seen the "Quiet Zone" insulation before too, but I don't know how it fare's in sound isolation though. Its quite readily available here as well.

[Alex W]

Don't know the cost of that stuff but you should compare it to 3" mineral wool. I used that in all my walls and ceiling (floor is concrete so I didn't worry about it) and it worked great.

Domestic (USA) supplier is Thermafiber. They have a website where you can contact them and find a distributor in your area.

Alex

[Michael Jones]

Yeah, 3" RockWool is definately the way to go. Here in my area the rockwool is $1/sq.ft. QuietZone is about $0.66/sq.ft.

[Amped]

Hey thanks, but my main concern is the resinance generated from the floor, Ive got the walls pretty much figured out., a friend told me that regular roll roofing would serve as a better barrier with more mass, I was thinking about doing a double layer but Im not quite sure whether to put it under or over the plywood. Any thoughts would be appriciated asap, buildings due to start this week.
Jim

[Amped]

Come on ya'll, any input on the roll roofing?

[knightfly]

Jim, first of all you didn't mention what the 2x6 joists will be sitting on - is there going to be a perimeter foundation, or maybe some concrete blocks with the 2x6.s resting on those, or what?

From what you've said so far, nothing short of 3-4 FEET of concrete would help you with soundproofing the floor, if you are only using one solid layer of material between you and the outside world - you would need TWO centers of mass separated by only ONE air space. Anything else is going to be a waste of time.

Case in point - I built a room into my barn almost 20 years ago - 2x6 joists resting on concrete blocks, with 6 mil black poly vapor barrier on the ground under it - one layer of 3.4 ply, two layers of 30# roofing felt (thick tar paper, 2 layers = 2/3 of one layer of 90# roll roofing) then, ANOTHER layer of 3/4" particle board (better than plywood, more mass) - Bottom line (pun intended) the floor lets just as much sound in/out as the standard 2x4 walls with an extra layer of 3/4 particle board inside. (All that was before I even knew that egg crates were almost worthless for ANYTHING other than holding eggs)

I know this will raise the cost, but if you want your floor to be as good as even basic staggered-stud walls, you'll need a double floor.

From the ground up, that would be something like this - black poly vapor barrier on ground, concrete blocks, 2x6 joists (need to be supported at least every 7 feet, if you're using #2 and better douglas fir 2x6.s on 24" centers, you can go 8 feet if using 16" centers. Then, a layer of OSB (cheaper than plywood, use 3/4" at least) then a couple layers of the 90# roll roofing (butt joints and caulk, second layer with seams staggered, preferably at right angles to first layer) - then, a layer of MDF or particle board (more mass, better isolation)

That would be your FIRST center of mass - now you need an air space, and a SECOND center of mass.

The wider the air space, the better the isolation - the problem here, is if you build the double floor first, you have a path thru the upper mass into the inner joist cavity, and through the outer frame members - that path doesn't have a 2-mass, 1 air space barrier, so will leak sound a lot more.

The way to get around this, is to build the soundproof walls on TOP of the first platform (just like regular house construction, only with doubled flooring as I explained above, and with 1/4" neoprene between the floor and the wall frame - caulk everything thoroughly with REAL acoustic caulk, usually only available at commercial drywall places, insulation contractors or online at twice the price - finally, after the rest of the room is built, put a perimeter strip of Celotex or other soft "sound board" around the base of the walls (kind of like wide molding) that is maybe 1/2" wider than the total height of the INNER floor, which should be built as follows -

1/2 to 1" neoprene blocks supporting a second 2x6 joist frame, 3 pound/cu ft Rockwool or mineral wool (same thing) between the joists, then 3/4 OSB, at least 5/8 particle board (caulk seams, second layer at right angles to first) then vinyl or whatever (not carpet) floor covering.

Be sure to caulk well all around the perimeter. The "soundboard" perimeter should keep the floor from having a hard physical connection to the wall, the caulk should hermetically SEAL ANY POSSIBLE air leaks, and you will have a fully isolated, floated floor that will keep up with pretty much ANY wall you can build. It will also kick ass on any door you're likely to put in, so the door should be your weakest link if all your other construction is done right.

The ceiling should be done with the same 2-mass, 1 air space construction. If you violate this rule by having more masses with more air spaces, you'll be just wasting time and money. Period.

If you're planning on rehearsing with LIVE drums instead of an electronic kit, and you DON't build the way I outlined, I GUARANTEE that any neightbors within 200 feet will hear your drums/bass too much. Been there Done that - my double-layer, single mass floor room let my wife hear nearly everything we played live in that room from INSIDE the HOUSE, and they are 100 feet apart!!!

Short of building a room in a cave half a mile underground, there is no substitute for proper design.

Here's a link to some further discussion of wall construction - please note in particular John's wall chart posted on Mar 01, and my second post on Mar 17, for a better understanding of what I recommended above -

http://www.homer.com.au/phpBB2/viewt...p?t=86&start=0

Hope that helped; as I said, I know you're not gonna like spending the extra - but I know you'll like the results even less if you DON'T do it that way... Steve

[knightfly]

Working on a few CAD drawings (should have done this months ago), will post them when finished (framing details, corner construction, isolation details, etc)

This may take a day or two (Life is the crap that happens to you while you're busy making plans), hope you can wait because it will help you a TON... Steve

[Amped]

Hey Steve! WOW! Thanks man! Thats what I was looking for, theres a ton of great info there, Im gonna hard copy it and study it in greater detail over the next few days. Im really looking foward to the CAD drawings! 100 feet away huh, hmmmm, time to rethink my plans.
Again, thanks a lot!
Jim

[knightfly]

No prob, Jim - got the first one done sooner than I thought (too damn hot out to do what I SHOULD be doing :=)

Hope this translates to low-res brousers OK - Crap, not very good - the first one was about 30K too big for upload rules - I'm gonna try it at John's site under Construction forum, gonna post all the dwgs there anyway... Steve

[Amped]

Hey Steve!
Thanks for working with me on this, Ive been pulling out whats left of my hair tryig to figure out a system that wont waste time or money.
First let me tell you that the foundation will be built on skids (4x6's) as on a portable building, meaning there will only be concrete pylings to compensate for grade and the joists will be 2x6 green wood on 16" centers. Hope this little bit of info is usefll.
By the way, the chart for me is barely ledgable and I really want to review them, could you possible send t hem to jim-delisio@webtv.net ? That would be great!
Thanks Steve, I appreciate all your help regarding this issue.
Jim

[knightfly]

There is a higher resolution version I just posted here

http://www.homer.com.au/phpBB2/viewt...hp?p=1959#1959

I'm planning corner details, a recap of wall details, RC installation tips, etc - it will take time, but if one of those would do you more good right now I'll try to work on it first.

Let me know back if the link has a sharp enough copy, assuming you're still online... Steve

[knightfly]

You can just substitute the skids for the bottom set of joists, then run the upper frame cross-wise keeping the rubber centered over the skids as I mentioned in the text. You will definitely want to locate a source of real Acoustic Caulk and seal EVERYTHING as you go - best bets for that are commercial insulation/drywall contractors - One guy in San Diego found some at one of those places for about $3.40 for quart size tubes. Home Depot carries the commercial size caulk guns, a cheap one for $7 and a herky one for $14. What they DON'T have, is anything worth spreading with the gun - for that, you gotta dig around - If you can't find the caulk ANYWHERE, I have a link for $7.50 a tube, which still isn't any more than the small tubes run per foot of bead... Steve

[knightfly]

Guise, if you actually want to be able to READ the info on that dwg, go here

http://www.homer.com.au/phpBB2/viewt...hp?p=1959#1959

John's site has bigger allowable file size, that one was half again as large as HR allows, so I had to shrink it and it sucks... Steve

[knightfly]

Oh, BTW, if you're planning on rehearsing with your Death Metal band and have the space, increasing the air space and using completely separate wall frames (instead of offset studs) will improve the loss noticeably (several dB) - same with the floor - 2x8's beat 2x6's, etc... Steve

[Amped]

My freakin brains smokin, youre doin this on purpose aint ya, lol.
Sorry Steve, I still cant make out the wording on the digrams, damn, But I think I have a grip on the general logic involved, mainly its mass, air and isolation, Truthfully, at this point, Id welcome any documentation pertaining to any and all phases of the soundproofing process that are related to my particular situation.
Thanks a bunch!
Jim

[knightfly]

What resolution are you using? I did those on a 1024 x 768 LCD, and they show up fine.

I'll see if I can make the text part bigger tonite if things are slow at work... Steve

[knightfly]

Here's another quick thing to try, I just did it - go to the bigger file on John's site, right click on the picture, click Copy, then open paint, do a Ctrl V (or edit/paste) - then, click view, zoom, custom, and choose 200%. Scroll to the text and it should be readable.

I do my drawing in a CAD program, which is vector based - the fonts don't translate very well when you convert to a raster-based format like JPG - I'm going to try a few different things soon to see which works best for this type of conversion. Meantime, get the file from John's, dump it into paint, zoom in 200%, and it should work.

BTW, everybody, this particular design is not what I consider to be the BEST soundproofing of all time, not by a long shot. What it is, is really good soundproofing for a room that is on skids and may be moved. Some of the better methods of sound proofing wouldn't stand up to that kind of abuse, and since this was originally drawn in answer to Jim's question the drawing was geared to his situation... Steve

[knightfly]

There are a couple more drawings at John's site, I tried to make the text bigger - I still don't know what resolution you're using that you can't read the first one - is it lower than 1024?

Anyway, here's the link -

http://www.homer.com.au/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=328

[Michael Jones]

This just occured to me:
If you use RC on your walls, and that holds the sheetrock out away from the studs, how do you seal the gap at the bottom??

[knightfly]

You rest the sheet rock on spacers while fastening to the RC (bottom channel opens UP, all others open dOWN ) - the spacers should be 3/16" to 1/4" thick - then, after the rock is fastened, you pull the spacers, give it a day or two to sag, (won't be much) then you use acoustic caulk and seal it tight.

You need to do this for each layer, so you have a thicker barrier at the bottom of the wall where the caulk is the only barrier.

Technically, this would create a "4-leaf wall" - but the reality is, that small a cavity works out to a resonant freq. of about 12-15 kHz, which would be absorbed by the caulk.

You were asking about RC and corners a few days ago, did you check the latest detail drawing on John's site? Including the text explanations... Steve

[Michael Jones]

Originally posted by knightfly
...(bottom channel opens UP, all others open dOWN )...

I gotcha!
Thanks.

[Amped]

Steve, unforunately, my budget wont allow for such a detailed format, I wish it would, I was thinking maybe: working from the bottom up,
skids, double layer of heavy roll roofing installed at right angles, 2x6 joists, fiberglass insulation for thermal only, a layer of quiet zone, a layer of 30 pound felt, 3/4" plywood, another double layer of roll roofing, building the walls over top of the roll roofing to act as an isolator. What are the possibilities of this configuration? Too bad money is almost always the deciding factor.
Thanks,
Jim

[knightfly]

Michael, forgot to mention that the only reason USG gives for the bottom RC being inverted, is to make it easier to get the screws driven - otherwise, you'd be fastening the drywall onto the channel at about 1" off the floor. Kinda close for most drills to stay parallel, even if you DID use a garage "creeper" to roll along the floor while fastening the bottom.

I just picked up an excellent book on drywalling at Home Depot, it's just called Drywall - don't remember the author, and the book's not handy at the moment. I'll post the full info when I get a chance; I already learned more than enough to justify the cost of the book, and only read a few pages.

Jim, I know what you mean about the money thing - however, you kind of lost me in your description. The main thing you need to maintain is the concept of 2 centers of mass with one air space in between. You could lighten up the mass some, but if you change the BASIC idea your soundproofing will be severely hurt.

First, you want to stay away from plywood in sound walls - it's more expensive per thickness than any of the other materials, and does less for sound attenuation.

For the floor, you could use a layer of 3/4 waferwood below the joists and a layer of OSB above the joists, using 3x4" cut-up 1" horse mat for rubber pucks (check any good tack/feed store)

Then, for walls you would need to use pretty much what I drew, or you would lose a LOT of isolation. Sheet rock is the cheapest high-mass material you can buy for sound walls, it just can't be used outside. It also has pretty low strength for structural use, but it is pretty reasonable cost wherever you can get away with using it. Particle board is also cheaper than plywood and better at sound control, but may have been manufactured using binders (glue) that has formaldehyde. This stuff will outgas for quite a while, and it's a known carcinogenic in the rat-killing world; if you use it, it should NOT be the inner-most layer of wall/floor covering. There are special coatings available that will seal it, and two layers of urethane varnish have been reported to work pretty well also - but then again, there's ANOTHER expense - urethane varnish runs anywhere from $25 a gallon and up - a gallon will only cover about 5 sheets of 4x8 particleboard, given two full coats - so you've just raised your cost by $5 a sheet - it would be cheaper to just use 1-1/8" OSB tongue/groove flooring (glued at each joint) and be done with it.

As I said before, your description of the (affordable) plan kind of lost me - if you could either draw an example or re-word it, it might help.

Keep in mind that (looking at the first drawing) for best sound control you need to stick to the "2 mass, one air space" method - note from the drawing, that no matter where the sound tries to get in or out, it has to go through two separated mass centers. You can change WHAT that mass is, and still have reasonable isolation. But if you change HOW MANY, or WHERE, that mass is, you will lose a LOT of isolation.

Think it over, and come back with an approximate budget, preferred size of room, how picky your neighbors are and how loud your band plays, and maybe we can figure something out... Steve

[Amped]

Hi Steve,
Sorry for the confusion, let me see if I can try this again, Im strictly talking about the florr here, since the building will be labelrd a portable building, it will be built on 4x6 wooden skids, on top of the skids would be a double layer of 90 pound roll roofing for secondary mass, then the 2x6 joists would be built over the skids, between the joists would be pink fiberglass insulation which would be used for thermal insulation only, (air space) then over the top of the joists would be a layer of quiet zone acustcal batting, then a layer of 30 pound roofing felt to isolate the plywood flooring from the joists, then, a layer of 3/4" plywood for the floor, then another double layer of 90 pound roll roofing, the combination of the roll roofing, 3/4" plywood and the layer of quiet zone would act as the primary mass. Thus, mass, air space, mass.
The building will be 24'x24' 460 sqare feet, my neighbors are pretty typical, some worse than others but for the most part, reasonable, the band plays umm, err, well, actually it depends on the dynamics of the song we're playing, we can get loud no doubt! The building will be in the back yard with some trees and fence between lots. Anyway, I hope this clears things up at least a tad...
Thanks a million!
Jim