Using pallets to contruct room within room frame?

Hi guys, this is my first post here. Great forum tons of useful info. I currently run a small practice room in the uk, and all being well in the next month we will be moving to new premices which is still not the biggest of places but will enable us to have 2 practice studios and a control room for demo recordings. anyway, after looking at room within room constructions, Does anyone have any experience or knoledge as why we shouldnt use pallets to create the wall frame? the main reason being we have a large supply of them and could save us a couple of hundred in the studio build. Rockwool would fit between the standard pallet and they would be hidden by the plasterboard in anycase so not worried about the looks. They have quite a large overall mass as well which i thought would be an advantage. Just wanted to know if anyone had tried this or has any advice? Cheers. Jake.

Hai Jake, and welcome. Dunno.... It seems like an idea; you've got the wood, installing wool is easy. So why not. The mass of the frame ain't important for isolation. It's more that stability of the whole wall I'm worried about.

cheers Ro. indeed that would be my main concern also!. But i need to look more at how other people have attached frames, i was thinking heavy duty screws with small peices of rubber between the pallets and the wall, or is this useless as the 2 walls are then connected? perhaps some kind of support from the floor could be devised as its a concrete slab. But ill have a look into it and let you know what i come up with! If anyone has any ideas in the meantime then im all ears! Also if i do manage this, would you recommend RC channel between the frame and plasterboad for max isolation? thanks. Jake.

Professional designers are loath to recommend anything that is not tested. Ignoring building code and stability requirements, what you are describing is so unique that I would not want to provide any form of support for the idea. I am not saying it will not work. I am saying that I can not think of any reference to similar tested designs to provide any informed opinion on it. Andre

altho I'm with Andre, this might be a nice opportunity to test it :) According to your words I'd recommend studying a bit more before getting into construction. There's good info on this forum. And maybe you'll turn to proven constructions after all...

i think you would be better with stud work framing, pallets are a bit of a pain i think. from the little i have read here the two walls must be decoupled and you would find that easier to handle with stud work. just about to set out on exactly the same venture as you, just trying to find a 2500 sf area in Bolton, nr Manchester, or rather one thats suitable :shock: plenty of spaces available, but not many decent ones Iain

riversidestudio wrote:

Does anyone have any experience or knoledge as why we shouldnt use pallets to create the wall frame? the main reason being we have a large supply of them and could save us a couple of hundred in the studio build. Rockwool would fit between the standard pallet and they would be hidden by the plasterboard in anycase so not worried about the looks.

Structural integrity. A typical USA pallet is not much more then 48 inches tall. Often made of Oak. In order for this idea to work, in my minds eye, you would have to stack one of these pallets onto another one, end to end. If that is your attempt, I wouldn't attempt it :) Lacking vertical framing members from floor to ceiling puts everything and everybody at risk from the inevitable collapse of this type of poorly built wall. Structural integrity. If your wall doesn't have this...get it!!!

I would suggest that you go ahead and build it, but float the whole thing on a bunch of old car tires stuffed with women's undergarments to maximize your uniqueness and get a leg up on recording hit records. All kidding aside, you are trying to save a "couple hundred"? I can't visualize how this would save you much of anything. Maybe pallets are different over there. Can you elaborate a little on your construction ideas? What about selling the pallets and using the money to purchase proper building materials?

vonrock wrote:

What about selling the pallets and using the money to purchase proper building materials?

'And the winner is ...' gets my vote

you guys have some good points. I was just wondering if anyone had attempted this to see if it would work. But its not a major issue. Ive been looking into timber framing and to be honest its probably one of the cheaper parts of the project so no need to cheap out on it hey! To answer your question in the uk pallets are quite well built and heavy with two stacked they reach around 7 foot, which as you say is worrying with the structural integrity of the whole thing. I dont think pallets are worth a great deal tbh, ill probably dismantal a few and use them for other stuff, panel absorbers, clouds etc. Cheers for all the comments, hopefully ill get some design plans and progress up in a seperate thread soon. thanks. Jake.

riversidestudio wrote:

...would you recommend RC channel between the frame and plasterboad for max isolation? thanks. Jake.

Hi Jake, I'm glad to see the pallet debate is over, and the proper call was made. I would not recommend RC for decoupling in that I've never seen it properly installed and it is really, really easy to short circuit. I would suggest thinking about using Clips and Hat Channel for decoupling if constructing a single stud wall. If you are doing a double stud wall (room within a room) then you will already have decoupling.

cheers john. this is where im stuck as to which structure to go for, with original plans to have a room within room type structure. But how important is the fact that the two walls are not connected? when you say single stud wall is this build and attached to the outside wall or is there an air gap seperating? I have read through the basics articles and looked at many different peoples construction pictures but cant seem to tell weather most are attaching the first layer of plasterboard to the orignal wall and then adding insuation as the air gap followed by plasterboard again. or is this structure spaced from the wall so it is de-coupled? either way what levels of soundproofing does a typical single stud wall provide? I need to do some testing with db levels to see what my bands are producing in the first place then work from there. But im looking to get the maximum isolation possible (same as everyone!) without losing to much space in the main room which is - 7x4m. Sorry to babble on and ask so many questions. If someone could point me in the right direction! mabye there are things i have missed or misunderstood. thanks again. Jake.

Jake, Decoupling is a very important element in soundproofing or sound isolation. The benefit of decoupling is that the sound energy is thwarted from going from one side of the wall to the other due to mechanical separation. This in turn will drive down the low end resonance point which is key when dealing with situations that produce a lot of bass like home theaters, band practice rooms, and recording studios. A typical 2x4 wood stud wall with 1 layer of 5/8" plasterboard will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-42 STC. Not that good. Keep in mind that when you do your tests that your dB meter will read a single numbered A-Weighted dB number. What is more important is at what frequency bands the sound produced is the loudest. For bands it will be in the 70-120 Hz area which is below the STC band. I have attached a picture of the 3 basic wall types that may be a bit easier to understand. I hope this helped John

[quote="John Hile"][/quote] Required reading: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Please resize your graphics accordingly ;)