material: SAND

Hello everybody, what do you think about using sand as absorbing material? I would like to use for floor and walls placed in the interspace between the original and the new wall (floor) covered with plywood or plasterboard. I'm asking about sand because i can get a lot for free. The building is probably a large industrial shed to split in several room and is going to be a commercial studio. Thank you all! Omar

omaroski wrote:

Hello everybody, what do you think about using sand as absorbing material? I would like to use for floor and walls placed in the interspace between the original and the new wall (floor) covered with plywood or plasterboard. I'm asking about sand because i can get a lot for free. The building is probably a large industrial shed to split in several room and is going to be a commercial studio. Thank you all! Omar

Omar, you never want to place sand in the air space between walls....... beyond that I have no comment - you really would need to provide a lot more detail in order for anyone to help you...... Rod

hi Rod, thank you for your reply. I'm going to formulate my question in another way so: -since i have a lot of sand for free can i use it somehow somewhere for isolation purposes or as absorbing material? Maybe it has good absorbing coefficient in the low freq range. Omar

Rectification: i found this page: http://iopscience.iop.org/0959-5309/52/3/307;jsessionid=719FD57B380FD827DF7DB50737223375.c2 ...where it says from a study that absorbing coefficient of out-door materials like sand is not great. While loose gravel it is. I can have loose gravel too since my parents own a cave. There's the full pdf to purchase and i might get it if i can find precious infos about it. What do you think about? Before starting the project i would like just to know what materials i might have around.

uh? This reply doesn't seem very appropriate here.

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omaroski wrote:

Rectification: i found this page: http://iopscience.iop.org/0959-5309/52/3/307;jsessionid=719FD57B380FD827DF7DB50737223375.c2 ...where it says from a study that absorbing coefficient of out-door materials like sand is not great. While loose gravel it is. I can have loose gravel too since my parents own a cave. There's the full pdf to purchase and i might get it if i can find precious infos about it. What do you think about? Before starting the project i would like just to know what materials i might have around.

I can be short: don't. Get in the know and learn why I vote against your solution. :) This site is full of great info, use it for free!

thank you for your opinion!

the problem with sand is it's heavy - to contain it, especially in ceilings, you need a massive structure to contain it. Good sound isolation is based on mass and as you've already created a massive structure to hold the sand the sand becomes unnecessary.

Thank you John, i would never ever use sand in ceiling, i was just concerning walls and floor. Had the same reply in a forum about building for what it concern the heaviness of sand and the materials used to contain it. I'm having another idea right now, what do you think if it the sand was wrapped in bags and contained by an iron or wood frame supported by the original ceiling?

What would I think? - I would think you are wanking. forget it! it has no use in studio design other than adding mass to a drum riser and even there it's questionable.

ok, i only wanted to dispel any doubt before going on.