Cyeazel's project studio...... planning and preparing

Keith, to answer your question, I'd have to say yes and no. It is frustrating to not be able to do anything but I also am noticing new things that I want to just ask about also. So, you feel that it's not needed to fill the spaces before drywalling?

I'm sorry I wasn't clear in my response. In my opinion, drywalling the block wall isn't necessary.

Thanks for clearing that up. Great work so far in your garage. I can't wait to see more progress. Looks really great. :)

Okay so while I still patiently wait for the engineers results, I have another question that crossed my mind. Would wrapping the pipes for the sprinklers in the celing between rooms with buytl rope to help with flanking be a possible route? Might take a while to do it that way but if it would work, I'd do it. Any thoughts?

Sorry for the delay; if you want the block wall to look nicer, drywall is fine but I'd not worry about the pointing between blocks; (that's what those joints are referred to; comes from using the rounded point of the trowelto smooth the mortar joint, and i think a little bit from mortar shrinkage as it dries. Just don't put furring strips up so your drywall has a larger, overall air gap behind it and you'll be fine - for that area, you should just be able to put up the drywall with construction adhesive and mud/tape as normal. Man, you must have a TON of that butyl rope caulk :lol: Not positive, but it just might help since butyl has a pretty high damping factor - if it was just something like EPDM or Neoprene, I'd not bother. You would still want to box those pipes in with gypsum unless they will be behind your inner ceiling leaf... Steve

Yes. A ton of this stuff I do have. There are 6 rolls per case and I have a full pallets worth of cases. I feel like this stuff has to have good damping properties. After reading a post by Eric Desart in studiotips ( I think), I learned that when dropping some on the ground, the more "dead" or lack of bounce it has, the better it is. So I tested this and dropped some butyl on the ground to see what would happen and "smack", no bounce at all. Also, after reading descriptions of those puddy packs, the more I feel that puddy is also a good description of the consistency of the butyl rope. Is there anything I can do to help you (Knightfly)decide more surely whether this stuff would have good enough damping as well as any other applications that may be used? I'm planning on having my new lowered ceiling(s) below the pipes. I just need to have the sprinkler heads exposed. Is wrapping them up not needed if I have a ceiling below them or is this something you should do no matter what? Oh, and thanks for the tips on the drywall. I'm glad I won't be needing to fill those joints. On an unrelated note, I am confused about something. After reading Sharward's "beaf up" plan section, I noticed that the best thing is to glue/screw only the perimeters of the panels so each panel would maintain it's own coincidence dip. Too much glue causes the panels to be too rigid and act as one which lowers the coincidence dip which is not good. What confuses me is that this seems to conflict with the info in the sticky from knightfly that warns that the whole issue of glueing panels together being a bad thing is false. [url]http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=502[url][/url]

There is still some material on this site that's old/superceded by newer revelations; that's probably one such thread, hopefully I will eventually get time to change it. The newest wisdom - for "beef up" operations between studs, you would be using cleats to hold all the layers in place - gluing around the perimeter of each piece may not be necessary but it's a good idea anyway. You do NOT want to glue full-face ANYWHERE in a sound proof room, except for VERY special products like Green Glue which is a Constrained Layer Damping material, and actually IMPROVES the low end isolation of a wall. As to using "Laminating screws" and glue, Neither Rod nor I recommend this - it's too easy to get the wallboard too wet, which will soften it and let the laminating screws pull through (or worse) - also, with the exception of a single framed wall with no resilient mounts on either side (DEFINITELY NOT recommended in ANY case) there is almost no reason to avoid fasteners penetrating wallboard and studs; this is because one side of the wall should have no hard contact with the other anyway, and what little flanking the fasteners cause should be absorbed by the in-wall insulation. HTH... Steve

Okay, thanks, I think I've got it. 1) Glue (around perimeter) and regular (not laminated) screws is okay. 2) Glue and laminated screws - never 3) Full face glue - never Steve, don't mean to keep nagging about the butyl rope but is there anything else I should know that would tell me to not use this stuff. Did a search on butyl and damping and butyl is frequently referred to as having "excellent damping properties". Is this enough to go on? Here's a couple of pics of the butyl, thought maybe it might help you to see it.

Pix isn't the same as "touchy-feely" - is this stuff sticky, so it will adhere to where you put it? IF so, it should work for caulking. If it's REALLY sticky, you will still need to use foam backer rod behind it so your caulk doesn't fail with building flex. As to damping, try this - cut a short, 1" piece of the stuff, peel the paper off, and throw it at the floor. If it just stays there, it's REALLY well damped; if it does one little bounce (maybe an inch of rebound) it's OK - if it bounces wildly, give it to your dumpster. If it doesn't bounce at all, then wrapping pipes with it could improve noise control quite a bit; you'll have to experiment with that, since there are too many variables any other way... Steve

Okay so I did the throw test a couple of times. The first time I basicaly help my hand up above my head and dropped it. It hit the ground and didn't even move let alone bounce. The second time I took the same chunk and threw it "violently" at the ground and it made a really loud smack sound but still didn't bounce (maybe 1 cm or less). Even so, I consider that to be more of a wiggle than a bounce. Yes, this stuff is sticky and it remains permanently tacky. It bonds to drywall, concrete block, wood and metal equally well. I'm pretty sure that this stuff can't crack, so is backer rod still necessary? Since it's alright to use for caulking and (at least from the test) damping, would putting some on the face of the studs help damp drywall panels? So far, it looks like I'll be able to use this butyl for caulking and pipe wrapping. Any other applications that you think I could use it for please, feel free to give me some suggestions. Thanks again Steve.

Even if the stuff stays sticky, with a 3-point adhesion any joint movement can result in the LEAST sticky joint separating - this will be the gypsum. Safest way is to use backer rod anyway; saving money here makes NO SENSE. Damping drywall panels - I believe that would help some, but have nothing more than "gut feel" on this. I would think that sticking a couple of ropes to the panels BETWEEN stud mounts would do more for damping, but again this is only "gut feel" - as long as the stuff stays put, I don't see the harm. BTW, since the stuff is sticky, maybe a better "bounce test" would be to first wrap some tissue paper around the piece and THEN throw it against the floor... Steve

Thanks for the tissue paper idea. I wouldn't have thought of that. And as for the damping on drywall panels, since it was your gut feeling leads you to think it could work, would it work enough to avoid using insulation or is insulation always a must no matter what? Okay, I'm gonna go and test the stuff again but with tissue paper this time.

Okay so I wrapped it in toilet paper and dropped it from a height of 7'10"(bathroom) and still virtually no bounce. It just hits the ground and sort of rolls over because of the shape of the test chunk. From the same height, I threw it on the ground instead of just dropping it and there was a very tiny bounce, definately less than an inch. Lookin pretty good to me. What do you think Steve, does is appear to pass the test?

Yup, sounds pretty damped to me; as to eliminating the insulation, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... Steve

I'm gonna take a chance and say that I should stick with insulation, at least judging by Knightfly's response in the previous post. I figured that no insulation would be a long shot but I had to ask.

cyeazel wrote:

I'm gonna take a chance and say that I should stick with insulation . . .

:lol: :mrgreen:

I see you agree Keith. Man, I'm so tired of Steve not being totally clear about what he thinks. :wink:

By the way Keith, I'm right at your heals in terms of the number of views I've gotten on my thread. I only need about 19,000 more and I'll be right there with you. :!:

My :lol: was me laughing at your self-directed sarcasm, which I see is still in effect with your clever "right at your heals" comment! :D

Sorry for the inconclusive answers; I'll try to be more definitive in future :cry:

Yeah Steve. Maybe if you wrote in a larger font or something. Okay enough sarcasm. Thanks for your answers. I'm sure I"ll have plenty more questions. Hmmm, there doen't seem to be any conclusive proof that my building actually exists. I've been back and forth between the village, the township, the county,etc etc,, and no one has any info on previous owners or construction history. The guy we bought the building from didn't have the as built drawings or if he did, he didn't give them to us. This is a real pain trying to track down any info on this building. How's that for changing the subject?

Well, if it doesn't exist then they shouldn' t mind if you change parts of your non-existent building without getting a permit, right?? :wink:

That's exactly what I was thinking. I mean seriously though, I've been back and forth between these guys over and over. The lady from the cook county building dep't said that they only keep documents for 7 years and then they chuck em. My building was built in 1969 which is a little bit more than 7 years, as far as I know. I keep getting referred to this dept then that dep't then back to this one etc. etc.. I want to respect and follow all the codes but it seems (like you said Steve) that if there are no records that exist, then there are no codes to follow either. I don't know, maybe I'll give the Federal government a call and see if George W. has some documents.

Is there any advice about what to do in this situation? I mean I don't want to do anything unsafe or illegal, obviously, but the city,township,county etc. has no record of my building. Is this my clue to just proceed? My conscience tells me that I need to follow codes in the "correct" way but what about a situation like mine? Am I breaking the law if I don't pull permits even if there's no record of the existing construction? Or am I lucky because this doesn't happen often and it is the one loophole that allows you to not have to have a permit?

IF you have insurance on the building, I would call your agent and explain that you want to do thing right and documented so there isn't a hiccup if you should ever have an insurance claim; maybe your agent can light a fire under the appropriate "BRA" (Bureaucrat Run Amok), who, in this case, apparently isn't running amok enough :? - other ideas - talk to the fire chief/inspector, see if they have any records of the building, tell everyone you talk to the same story because it's the truth and won't need to be modified. Then, if nobody wants to help you I would physically go to the building inspector and ask point blank if you need to/can pull permits for your work; If he says no, tell him you're going to do it anyway and he's welcome to watch. If necessary, escalate this bullshit clear up to the Mayor; on the way, you should run into SOME kind of elected official who won't want bad publicity, and you should eventually get results. Sheesh, where are these losers when you WANT to do something illegal??!? Steve