I used the search and found nothing. Sorry my first post had to be a new topic and I hope this isn't a really stupid question but it will help me to know how to proceed.
Is Cinderblock, in and of itself, a two leaf material? It has mass on both sides and air in the middle.
I'm not sure if the firewalls I share with the adjacent townhouses are cinderblock but if they are and that does indeed make two leaves, I guess I'll need to adjust my plans.
Thanks.
Edit: renamed Subject from "Is Cinderblock Two Leaf". Found that too narrow and wanted to keep where I'm at in one place.
First, welcome to the board;
Second, YUP, sorry - the webs in block act just as studs in a wallboard/stud/wallboard partition, so it is already a 2-leaf wall.
You might be able to get info from the city planner on the construction of your place, unless the blocks are obvious by the pattern under the paint - of course this wouldn't be visible if wallboard has been added over, and it could be even WORSE if they've furred out from the blocks and THEN added wallboard; that would be a QUAD leaf wall if it were done to both sides. Many smaller contractors, even today with increased awareness of sound control needs, still have NO CLUE as to what actually WORKS for sound isolation so almost anything is possible.
You mentioned "townhouse" - before you get too involved, we should discuss which floor you're drooling over and a more complete plan of your intentions; sound isolation gets heavy really quick, and not all construction will stand the extra weight... Steve
Thanks for the welcome and reply. I've been lurking and reading this board for quite a while and thought I had a good plan of attack before this cinderblock issue reared it's head.
My needs first and foremost is to get as much sound isolation as possible. My space is far from perfect so I will work within and around whatever level of isolation and acoustics issues that the final product yields. I will use this basement area as a personal demo room--with drums, guitars, bass, etc. I've come to turms that I'd never be able to thump it as hard as Bonham and not disturb the neighbors, so I'll adjust my playing style as needed.
The dimensions of the basement of my townhouse is 28'x15' with 7' :( tall ceilings from the concrete slab floor to the trusses. The dimensions of the room I actually want to make to isolate is 16.5X15.
I planned on isolating this room (as much as possible) by framing a wood stud wall 2-3" in from the brick (cinderblock?) firewalls and exterior wall. I'd hang 2 sheets of 5/8" sheetrock on RC. The fourth wall--separating the utility room--I planned on double framing and then using like materials as the other 3.
I planned on putting soundboard between the trusses on the above floorboard then hanging one or two sheets of 5/8" sheets of sheetrock from clips.
There would be acoustic caulking, a solid core door with weather stripping, and insulation galore.
Like I said, I will work around the best isolation I can get. I'm sure acoustics would be a nightmare but I'll do the best I can to deal with that as the time comes.
If these partition walls indeed are cinderblock (I can see them but am not sure if they are), is all of this a lost cause?
Thank you very much for any input.
What you have is what you have, as far as the blocks are concerned; if you can afford it, I'd use 3 layers of 5/8 wallboard (sheet rock) on the wall, and since you're using separate frames for the wall ELIMINATE the RC.
Run the wall up to within 1/4" of the joists, then hang your isolation clips and suspend the ceiling layers INSIDE the wall, rather than use the new wall to hold up the edges of the ceiling - check out the REFERENCE section and download the USG manual if you've not already done so.
If you're concerned with upstairs isolation, consider extra inserts of wallboard between joists up against the subfloor before insulating and hanging clips/ceiling layers - before you do this, check out what is already there so I can help you figure spans and loading. You might need to "interleave" NEW joists and float the ceiling on your walls instead... Steve
Knightfly,
Thank you very much for the generous sharing of your time and knowledge.
That's good news about not needing RC. I believe I will go with that third layer of 5/8" sheetrock for the walls.
You asked if I was interested in upstairs isolation and I am. The joists above are 16" apart o.c. I hope to use clips but as my ceilings are only 7', I want a comfortable tradeoff of isolation/headroom. There is only subfloor and hardwood floor above the joists.
When you say help me figure out spans and loading, is this in reference to the number and spacing of clips and the weight I can hang?
Thank you once again,
Matt
Yeah - we need to know the depth of your ceiling joists and what's already there, then we can figure out what more weight you can hang and how to go about it... Steve
Separating your threads only makes it more difficult to track what's been said; please cut and paste your comments on this new thread and place them as a new post on your old one - then I'll see what I can do to clear up your questions- thanks... Steve
After you've copied this one over, I'll delete this thread.
Whoops, thanks. This is from the Basic Framing Question thread:
I'm certain that this topic has been answered but I've gone through the stickies and researched for months and I can't find or perhaps I'm overlooking or not understanding the answer I'm looking for. The search function hasn't proved useful either.
For isolation purposes what variations would one make when framing compared to traditional techniques? Do you nail the framing into the floor, ceiling joist, and the perpendicular external walls you are trying to isolate? Do the new inner wall frames ever come into contact with one another?
I'm trying to build walls in my basement to isolate sound from my townhouse neighbors where we share a common firewall.
If inner wall frames have hard contact with other INNER frames, it's not a big deal; it might cost you a couple of dB isolation by having one wall coupled to the other, but the main thing is that they aren't coupled to OUTER leaf or outer framing any more than absolutely necessary.
If you're not building a floated floor of any kind, then about the best you can do for inner framing is to bed the sill plates in sill seal material, and keep all wallboard spaced 1/4" away from floor/walls, etc, then caulk each layer as it's finished.
If you have the headroom, it's better to float a floor on EPDM or compressed fiberglass pucks (Kinetics RIM system) and then frame your inner walls on that floated floor. More support will be needed under the part of the floor where the walls rest. See Sharward's thread for more on this method.
For top support, resilient sway bracing is needed; go to kineticsnoise.com and click on Architectural tab, look at their sway bracing and floor systems for more ideas.
HTH... Steve
Okay, so I seem to keep popping in and out of this project but really I'm constantly planning--it's just the getting started thing that is taking a while.
My project (as read above) is building walls and a celing within my TOWNHOUSE'S current BASEMENT walls and ceiling.
My biggest conundrum is the wall adjacent to my next-door neighbors townhouse that also has the stairwell leading into the basement.
I was hoping I could solicit ideas from anyone reading. I've attached pictures below (pardon the basement mess). One idea I've had would be to enclose the stairwell---having a wall, then stairwell, the the common wall with a door at the bottom.
Any other ideas? I hope this was understandable.
This is a picture of the stairwell now. Notice the ductwork is currently running along the edge of the stairwell too. I would prefer not to move this:
I'm not sure if this picture helps. Shows looking up the stairwell where the ceiling ends and the well begins. Might put a door here:
Recovered from web.archive.org — originally hosted at http://s1.simpload.com/062742c055ed97ddb.jpgHere's one more from the other angle. If I do the doorway idea, the wall decoupled from the fire wall will stick out--or will it if there's a better idea:
Couple of things; one, can you take a pic looking UP the stairs, showing the third face of your ducting enclosure?
Next, how much demolition are you willing to do around the stairwell? You can't do much (if anything) legally to the party wall itself, other than possibly adding more layers of drywall - to do that, you'd need to remove the paneling for best results.
One problem with soundproofing and stairs; they are almost NEVER framed for structural isolation, so flanking is usually the biggest problem. One solution to this is, as you said, adding a wall on the inner side of the stairwell; this would need to be a separate frame with multiple layers of drywall, and should be made so its mass is continuous with the stairwell wall that's directly above your enclosed ducting.
What you need is for your inner containment wall mass to be one continuous envelope, with little or NO hard contact with the outer envelope of that space, which includes that party wall where the handrail is mounted.
If you put a door at the bottom, I think it should hinge on your NEW wall if at all possible; and the striker side of the door should NOT have its frame solid coupled to the party wall, but I'm not sure without more info just how you would do that. What I'm concerned with is keeping your inner leaf isolated from that party wall.
On the other hand, unless you were to build a separate wall ALONG the party wall BELOW the stairwell too, you'd still have solid coupling between you and your neighbor's basement.
Post the pic I asked for, and let's see what we can come up with from there... Steve
Thanks once again for your time.
I had actually meant to post a picture looking up the stairwell but somehow posted duplicates of another angle--I've updated above and am posting it here too. I think you want a picture of the other angle though--looking at the stair side of the ducting.
Every last bit of the ugly paneling will be removed from the basement--including around the ducting. Perhaps I would want to reroute the ducting to accomodate a wall enclosing the staircase but I'm not sure if that's out of my league--the one duct feeds the entire house.
Recovered from web.archive.org — originally hosted at http://s1.simpload.com/062742c055ed97ddb.jpg
If you're not building a floated floor of any kind, then about the best you can do for inner framing is to bed the sill plates in sill seal material, and keep all wallboard spaced 1/4" away from floor/walls, etc, then caulk each layer as it's finished.
For top support, resilient sway bracing is needed; go to kineticsnoise.com and click on Architectural tab, look at their sway bracing and floor systems for more ideas.
Okay, jumping back in. Thanks for the replies.
From the quote above: Would the sill seal be the only means of securing the sill plate to the floor?
Also, for the top support, would resilient sway bracing be used to secure the vertical stud to the joists? Or would I need a sole plate, securing that with the joist with a sway brace?
Finally, I'm assuming I don't want to hard couple the ends of the inner walls' frames to the outer walls. Do I need to secure the framing on each end with some other type of resilient bracing or do I need any securing there at all?
Thanks again,
Matt
If you're not building a floated floor of any kind, then about the best you can do for inner framing is to bed the sill plates in sill seal material, and keep all wallboard spaced 1/4" away from floor/walls, etc, then caulk each layer as it's finished.
For top support, resilient sway bracing is needed; go to kineticsnoise.com and click on Architectural tab, look at their sway bracing and floor systems for more ideas.
Okay, jumping back in. Thanks for the replies.
From the quote above: Would the sill seal be the only means of securing the sill plate to the floor?
Also, for the top support, would resilient sway bracing be used to secure the vertical stud to the joists? Or would I need a sole plate, securing that with the joist with a sway brace?
Finally, I'm assuming I don't want to hard couple the ends of the inner walls' frames to the outer walls. Do I need to secure the framing on each end with some other type of resilient bracing or do I need any securing there at all?
Thanks again,
Matt
Okay, so I see now that sill seal is a gasket-type thing and not a glue as I had thought.
My question still stands the top bracing. Do I need a top plate if I'm not building new joists?
Thanks.
Sill seal's main purpose when used for perimeter walls is to seal the sill; hence the name :wink: when placing ANY frame against concrete, you need some sort of Thermal Break - this keeps metal studs from rusting, and wood studs from rotting from whatever moisture comes up thru the concrete.
Also, for the top support, would resilient sway bracing be used to secure the vertical stud to the joists? Or would I need a sole plate, securing that with the joist with a sway brace?
A Sole plate is the BOTTOM horizontal framing member of a wall frame; the top one (or two) are called either top plates, or caps - some locales call BOTH of the upper horizontal members caps, others call the lower of the two top boards a top plate and the upper one a cap. And yes, you'd need a top plate and sway brace setup in most cases.
Finally, I'm assuming I don't want to hard couple the ends of the inner walls' frames to the outer walls. Do I need to secure the framing on each end with some other type of resilient bracing or do I need any securing there at all?
If you will have another wall frame tying into this one at right angles, it can act as the stabilizing force for at least the END of the wall; however, for a wall that's longer than about 8 feet (don't recall if there is a code ruling on this) you would need resilient sway braces.
HTH... Steve
I wanted to get this info that Steve gave in another thread into my thread before I lost it. I'm sure I have questions but don't quite know how to ask them yet:
Here is one type of sway brace sold by kineticsnoise.com - check out their site by deleting the part of the link after .com -
http://www.kineticsnoise.com/kwsb.html
These can be used for upper wall support of inner walls - if your local code doesn't mandate it, I would try to NOT connect the frame between the ceiling and the inner wall plate, nor would I go to the effort of mitering the top plate. If you have compound miters at the top of the wall due to non-parallel walls, you can temporarily mount a sheet of drywall high enough up on the frame so that one end of it touches the ceiling, then measure the distance to the other end of the sheet from the ceiling, cut a diagonal line on the new sheet so that the higher end of the new sheet has the same gap as the other end, then use a rasp to fine tune the edge for better fit. Caulk like crazy. If that explanation sucked as bad as I think it did, let me know and I'll try again with a drawing.
If the commercial sway brackets are too expensive (not sure what they cost) you could make something similar of you're handy with tools. The main thing you want is no HARD connection from inner to outer wall.
If you bed the sole plates of the inner walls with 1/8" or 1/4" neoprene and use acoustic sealant on both sides of the neoprene, the weight of the wall should keep anything from shifting. The fewer fasteners you put thru the plate, the less sound can get through. One possible way to handle this would be to use the sway brackets top and bottom - they could be installed by putting the sheet rock on AFTER the wall frames are tipped up. You would need diagonal braces temporarily nailed to each wall frame until the first sheet of wall board is fastened, in order to keep them square. Then, once you have some wallboard on the studs the braces could be removed. Having sway braces top and bottom on each side of the inner room would keep anything from shifting, even if gravity weren't enough.
One way to build your own sway bracing would be to build a pocket of some sort on the outer wall frame, large enough for a 2x4 to slip in with 1/2" gap all around - then put 1/2" neoprene in the BOTTOM of the pocket, cut a second piece of 1/2" neoprene that will surround the 2x4, push the 2x4 firmly into the rubber-surrounded pocket, and nail the other end to the inner wall frame. If you did this on all sides, the frame could go nowhere but still would be isolated.
It sounds like your floor may end up being the weakest link - if the sheet rock isn't already on the underside of jousts, putting Resilient Channel on the joists first would help quite a bit. Hopefully, the lower air cavity (called a garage) would help dissipate what leaks thru that way.
I wasn't really clear as to what your total wall materials will be - I'm hoping those outer walls have no inner paneling, so you can keep to the 2-leaf wall ideal.
Hope that answered a few things for you... Steve
Thanks a lot for that information.
I’ve changed the name of my thread for the last time to add a bit of a personal touch and to designate its all-inclusiveness.
The first question I have is whether I can hang my new ceiling on my current joists. I’m a little unsure on how to read the span calculators, so hopefully somebody can help me out. The current floor, what will be above the new ceiling is hard wood and then sub flooring that looks like this:
The joists above are 2x10s (but do they really measure 2x9.5”?) and are 16” apart. At the widest point in the room, the joists are 15’ 1” long. I would like to attach 2 layers of 5/8” drywall directly to the sub flooring between the joists and then, hopefully hang 2 layers of drywall from RSIC clips from the existing joists---if they can handle all of that weight. Is there anything else that needs to be known to figure this out?
Finally, the old ceiling had ceiling tiles hanging on furring strips. There are spots along the joists where the furring strips have created depressions. Will these depressions significantly hinder what can be attached to the joists? Thanks again for ALL input.
The joists above are 2x10s (but do they really measure 2x9.5”?) . . .
See this nominal-actual lumber size table. The height of your joists (not counting the notched areas) is probably 9 1/4" and their width is probably 1 1/2".
. . . and are 16” apart. At the widest point in the room, the joists are 15’ 1” long. I would like to attach 2 layers of 5/8” drywall directly to the sub flooring between the joists and then, hopefully hang 2 layers of drywall from RSIC clips from the existing joists---if they can handle all of that weight. Is there anything else that needs to be known to figure this out?
You need to establish the species of lumber, the weight of the lumber alone (should be easy to estimate with some Googling), and the weight of your materials. The combination of all of these things is the "dead load." I believe 5/8" drywall weighs about 2.3 pounds per square foot (PSF). You also need to familiarize yourself with live load requirements in the building code your municipality uses. I'm guessing you'd need to account for a live load of 40 PSF.
See "Understanding Loads and Using Span Tables" on the American Wood Council site.
There are spots along the joists where the furring strips have created depressions. Will these depressions significantly hinder what can be attached to the joists
I learned that my municipality's building code allows for notches no greater than 1/4 the depth on the ends, no greater than 1/6 the depth elsewhere, with no notches allowed in the middle third of the span, where most of the strain will be borne by the span. Although those notches look very small, I would assume that since they appear to also exist in the middle third area that their strength has been compromised. To what extent, I don't know. At the very least you would not want to push their limits. To be totally on the safe side you'd want to consider sistering all the joists with new 2x8s.
Doni, the framing guru, what are your thoughts?
Are there any stamps on any of them? How old is the house? (Old enough to have paneling! :lol:)
In the absence of knowing for sure, perhaps you can make some "worst case estimates." Here's where if my brain were a cell phone it would be showing "one bar's worth of service." ;-)
--Keith :mrgreen:
Well, you're very helpful either way--even if just pointing out things I need to think about. Thanks.
I can't find any stamp on any joist. The house was built in 1955. So, if I can't get the species of wood, I suppose I won't hang anything off of these joists.
But considering these are 2X10's at 16" o.c., I should be okay with two layers of 5/8" gypsum in between the joists against the floor above and I'll interleave new joists? What do you think?
Matt
Whether you "hang" it on the bottom of the josts or attach it to the subfloor, you're still adding dead load weight to the structure, so it doesn't really matter.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I am saying that you need to research it to make sure it will be OK. (Basically, that's what you're doing right now! :lol: Unfortunately, I'm not the one to write that permission slip for you. ;))
Funny how I started out here asking all the questions for my own project, then graduated to "greeting" folks and pointing them to threads that were relevant to their situation, and now I seem to have become the Resident Worry Wart! :lol:What's up with that?:lol:
Don't tell John -- or he'll change my title from "mere mortal" to "resident worry wart." :shock:
--Keith :mrgreen:
Whether you "hang" it on the bottom of the josts or attach it to the subfloor, you're still adding dead load weight to the structure, so it doesn't really matter.
Yeah, I understand this--it's just that before I was hoping I could attach two sheets to the subfloor AND hang two sheets from the joists. Now, in the absense of knowing the species of the joists, I was thinking surely I can, AT LEAST, attach the sheets to the subfloor if not also hang sheets from the joists. Basically--2x10's at 16" o.c.--certainly any species can handle two sheets.....?
sharward wrote:
I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I am saying that you need to research it to make sure it will be OK. (Basically, that's what you're doing right now! :lol: Unfortunately, I'm not the one to write that permission slip for you. ;))
Basically--2x10's at 16" o.c.--certainly any species can handle two sheets.....?
Don't bet on it.
Here's the thing... Builders tend not to do anything that isn't necessary in order to keep costs down. Wood products are much more expensive and/or of lesser quality these days, so if they can substitute a lesser quality item and still meet code and the minimum architectural requirements, they will do so. If they save a few hundred bucks on a house, multiply that by the hundreds/thousands that are built, and there begins to be a considerable savings.
To be on the safe side, you should assume that the house was built to meet code/spec and nothing more. There's a certain "live load" and "dead load" rating and they generally use the lumber to achieve those numbers. To add two layers of 5/8" drywall increases the dead load by about 5 PSF (pounds per square foot); four layers would be about 10 PSF. If the floor above was built to a 10 PSF dead load and is underloaded by 3 PSF -- a nice margin -- you'd be over limit with the two extra layers. It may not be a problem right away, but get a heavy and temporary live load on that assembly (i.e., a party with many guests all standing in a small area), and you could end up with damaging cracks, or worse, a disasterous failure that may cause injury or death.
The fact that it's an older home may be good in some ways and bad in others. On the plus side,, the lumber may be of better quality (slower growth) than today's stuff. On the minus side, building codes were less strict fifty years ago.
Again, I'm not saying you're a fool for wanting to add weight on that assembly. I am saying you need to consult with a pro to ensure nobody gets flattened.
--Keith :mrgreen:
most houses are built with spf ( spruce pine fur ). And for ceiling joists to hang 2 or more sheets of drywall you need 2x12's and depending on how much weight your going to put up on the ceiling joists you would either go 16"o.c. or 12" o.c.
