How to improve my floor?

P

Pete Gossett

New member
Hi everyone, I'm starting the planning stage of my new studio and have some questions regarding flooring.

My building is a ~100 year-old store building, but the floors are a bit odd. They're typical old wood planks on joists, but they're over a very shallow crawl-space, only about 1' deep, so I don't have any access underneath(without tearing it all up completely). Of course, they creak & shift as I walk on them.

After reading this article: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8173 It sounds like trying to do any type of floating-floor is unrealistic(Since ripping out the existing floor & re-doing it completely is waaaayyy out of the budget!), but what can I do to help? My initial thought is that if I can't really decouple the floor, I should at least try to reinforce it - maybe put a couple layers of OSB down?

Anyone have any experience dealing with this?

Thanks!
 
Pete,

I'm in the same position as you, just with a little newer house.....adding mass to the floor is probably your best bet.....make sure your structure can handle the extra weight though!

I was going to use carpet with plywood on top but have since decided against it.......I'm also considering concrete-based board or OC 703.....

Good luck, let us know what you decide
 
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I still think a floating floor will help. I built one over my concrete garage floor and it reall helped alot. I used 3/4 MDF as a subfloor, then laid 2X2's across the floor horizontally(not touching the walls) I then laid rubber pads every 18 inches or so and laid another row of 2X2's across vertically on top of the rubber pads. 3/4 inch plywood was then screwed to the 2X2's(again, not touching the walls) as the new floor and then laid carpet over that.

Never had the cops called to my house for too much noise. I also used resilient channel on all the studs in the walls and 2 layers of 1/2 inch drywall.

Hope this helps!

B
 
Pete,

You should be able to quiet down most of the "creaking" by simply RE-SCREWING the old floor boards down. The wood is probably still good but they didn't even have galvanize the nails back then. Things just loosen up over time. You can really tighten it up by rescrewing.

Just use modern coated floor plank screws. Screw them down from above. Probably do the whole floor for about $30.00. Then throw some carpeting over it. You can get good carpeting FREE from commercal installers who pull it out offices during tenant remodels.

Rich Smith
 
You know, I hadn't thought of anything as simple as re-screwing the floor. I'm sure that would help a bunch. I afraid that with semis passing by less than 30ft away, often late into the evening, that I may need to go more drastic. I'll wait until I've been in the building for a few months & see how bad it really is before I get too carried away with it though!

Thanks!
 
Did you float an entire "box" inside the garage...floor, walls, ceiling...or just the floor?
Click to expand...

I also used resilient channel on all the studs in the walls and 2 layers of 1/2 inch drywall.
Click to expand...

Not quite the same as "floating a box", but decoupling the drywall from the exterior envelope does the same thing to a certain extent. If he used RC on the ceiling then you could consider it almost a "floating box". Although the performance will not equal an actual "floating room", where the entire weight of the interior shell is supported by a decoupling scheme. Unfortunately, it takes a massive concrete floor slab supported by spring decouplers specifically designed for this purpose, with engineered edges to support the weight of the wall/ceiling assemblies. Or special rigid fiberglass products embedded with Sylomer pucks designed to support this kind of weight. Not only that, but the entire assembly weight, including equipment and people must be calculated to insure the decoupling mechanism compresses within a certain range, or it could fail by compressing too much or too little.

Floating a room is not for the faint of heart or inexperienced. It really takes a professional team to accomplish this endeavor, as a small control room can easily weigh 20 TONS! Consider Galaxy Studio in Belgium. The entire studio is floated on a set of MASSIVE springs with a calculated air gap down to 10hz, and weighs an astonishing 2000 TONS!!:eek:

Most HR enthusiasts with a desire to build a studio with good Transmission Loss attributes would be wise to invest a large amount of time studying the dynamics of TL strategies before attempting to "float a room". In fact, with the range of materials, techniques and hardware available today, successful TL construction can be achieved within reason, without floating a room. Most experts actually advise against it. Especially if your planned studio will be on a wood membrane upper floor. Think structural failure. Not to mention built in resonance.

If you think you need a floating room, here is some real good info. In reality, you probably don't need one.

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8173
fitZ
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
If you think you need a floating room, here is some real good info. In reality, you probably don't need one.
Click to expand...

Kinda' why I asked the question about the floor VS the whole room.

I don't think you gain anything by floating just the floor VS just going with the concrete slab of the garage. Any sound transmissions will occur through the walls/ceiling..and not so much the concrete floor.

Way back I use to think concrete floors were bad, and that you needed to put a wood floor over them to "improve" the sound...but then I learned that appart from aesthitic reasons (some people just like the look/feel of a wood floor), soncially, you won't gain much at all.
If anything...you only need to decide if you want a hard reflective surface (concrete or wood)...or deaden it a bit, by tossing a rug on it.
 
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