The Stickhouse Studio BUILD

Hi guys! It's been awhile getting things together, but I'm finally underway demoing the garage for the long-anticipated studio build. I've had an architect draw the plans and have the required county permit. For background info on my progress up to this point see: the Stucco as mass thread and my studio design thread. Attached is the architect's floorplan drawing.

So, currently I've pulled the stucco off the inside of the garage on the wall at the bottom of the drawing, which is shared with the dining room inside the house. The next step is to beef up that shared wall. Below you'll see the drawing of what I'm thinking to add beef to the wall. A couple notes and questions: the drawing shows "acoustic insulation"... that'll just be regular unfaced fiberglass insulation packed in a little tight. How do I hold that in? Does it in fact need to be covered with fabric? This will be inbetween the wall masses, but this airspace will be shared with the entryway. Do you guys have a suggestion for sticking the MDF to the existing drywall? I'm assuming some sort of construction adhesive should do the trick, I just don't want those layers to rattle. I'm not looking for extra isolation with Green Glue or something like that, I just want to stick them together well enough to get the cleats in. Hmm, I guess if there are gaps I can always screw from the dining room side after the fact, but then I have to patch and paint that wall again, which I'd like to avoid. So yeah, glue thoughts?

Awesome!!! I'm glad to see you get your feet off the ground, Stick!! I might just offer my assistance and/or supervision ;-) one day in exchange for some pizza or good Mexican food! :twisted: Excellent drawings from your architect, Stick! 8) As for "sticking" (no pun intended) your OSB panels to your existing wall, depending on the surface you're sticking them to, you may want to review page 26 of my thread, where I cut my OSB strips and stick them to the wall with construction adhesive. Congratulations, Stick. I know you've been through a lot getting to this point. We'll get you going the rest of the way! 8) --Keith :mrgreen:

. . . the drawing shows "acoustic insulation"... that'll just be regular unfaced fiberglass insulation packed in a little tight. How do I hold that in? Does it in fact need to be covered with fabric? This will be inbetween the wall masses, but this airspace will be shared with the entryway.

Covering it in fabric isn't a bad idea, if there's any chance the fibers will float into an area that humans will occupy.

Thanks Keith, Yeah, thanks... that was the answer I was looking for on the adhesive... You went with OSB and not MDF? What was the thinking there? Why not go for the heavier material? No good Mexican up here (unless you count Taco Bell), but we cook up a mean Papa Murphy's! I'm a demolition machine at the moment... rock wall and ceiling of drywall coming down this week after we prop up the existing roof line! And the fabric: something cheap and ugly and acoustically transparent I guess then? Burlap?

You went with OSB and not MDF? What was the thinking there? Why not go for the heavier material?

I figured that OSB is a little more moisture resistant than MDF. MDF practically disintegrates if it gets wet, whereas OSB can handle absorbtion of moisture now and then (as long as it gets an opportunity to dry out). Not that I expect it to get wet, but... :roll:

No good Mexican up here (unless you count Taco Bell) . . .

Ahem... Taco Bell is not Mexican food!!! :evil: ;-)

. . . but we cook up a mean Papa Murphy's!

Acceptable! 8)

And the fabric: something cheap and ugly and acoustically transparent I guess then? Burlap?

If you can afford it, I would go with something that's not flammable, like one of Guilford of Maine's fire resistant fabrics. --Keith :mrgreen:

You'll actually get a slight improvement in LF isolation if you only glue around the PERIMETER of your inserts, so they each maintain their OWN coincidence frequency; the cleats around edges will support the MDF and inner gypsum WITHOUT the panels being full-surface glued. When you glue two panels together (other than with Green Glue, which isn't a glue) you create a new, thicker, heavier SINGLE panel with ONE coincidence frequency that's LOWER than either separate panel would have - this puts the weaker isolation point of that panel at a lower frequency, which means it's harder to stop and requires more MASS to do so, which kinda defeats the purpose somewhat. HTH... Steve

Interesting, Steve... So, how does that apply to the next layer, which will be screwed to said MDF? Should I screw around the outside as well? I'll take a few pics of the mayhem at the moment and post 'em later...

Yup; when attaching drywall to studs, you only use 1 screw every 8" at most and there are NO SCREWS in between the studs (for obvious reasons :wink: ) - so no more support is necessary. By only fastening your "beef" around the edges, you keep separate coincidence frequencies for each layer, which will help even more than usual since you're using differing thicknesses AND materials per layer... Steve

Ok got it. Thanks Steve. So, a little fun in the dust...

Ha! Looks familiar in a way! 8) Unfortunately, I didn't have the benefit of the "along the edges only" knowledge when I glued my OSB. :( Oh well -- with four extra layers of drywall beef, including some green glue between two of the layers, I'm not going to lose sleep over that. ;-)

Keith, sorry I wasn't more watchful as you were doing that - but I'd thought I made it fairly plain about full gluing in this post http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=503 Dated in 2003, and updated 5/3/04, where I said, "USG, on page 118-119 of the USG construction manual, (once we deciphered it) does indeed say that it's OK to use strip lamination and laminating (Type G) screws for face layers on sound walls - they recommend only about 6 actual permanent fasteners per sheet of drywall, placed across the short end of the sheet - then, a stripe of joint compound next to each stud (placed immediately prior to installing laminating screws) and about 5-6 laminating screws per sheet (look at the manual, there is a a diagram next to the text on those pages)" However, I did go on to say that neither Rod nor myself recommended that method because we were't too confident in the ability of joint compound to maintain the second layer in place, so that likely could have been clearer - thing is, the stripe glue method in itself is acoustically correct, for the reasons I've stated here - Another link from the past, not specifically related to "beef" but still useful - http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... +glue#6529 And finally, IIRC weren't you concerned with the unevenness of your stucco or was that someone else? If it was you, I probably voiced a concern about the air gap created between uneven stucco and the first "beef" layer - I remember suggesting to someone about that time frame that mixing up some slightly sloppy mud and "buttering" the entire insert before placing it against the stucco would fill all the air voids and make for less "3 leaf" effect - I still think that's a better plan than NOT gluing that first layer of "beef", mainly because any appreciable air gap will worsen LF TL MORE than combining two layers into ONE would cause. Hope I didn't make things even MORE confusing by all that... Steve

knightfly wrote:

Keith, sorry I wasn't more watchful as you were doing that. . .

No worries, Steve! Like I said, no sleep lost here on that one. :)

. . . weren't you concerned with the unevenness of your stucco or was that someone else?

That was Dan (Fitzpatrick) with his infamous "wavy stucco syndrome." My OSB was glued to three different surfaces, depending on location: OSB structural sheathing (bad), building felt (probably doesn't matter), and drywall (laundry room wall, bad, but no big deal). --Keith :mrgreen:

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I ordered some putty pads to cover those electrical boxes. I'm assuming I should cut around them with the MDF and drywall, and then once the beef is in place, cover what's left sticking out with the putty. Rather than putting the putty in first.... Today's project is to rip off the drywall that's on the ceiling now. We have to brace up the ridge line so I can tear out the exterior wall. Taking down the drywall is going to be a drag, mostly because the attic is filled with that nasty blown in insulation. UGH. Back to the goggles and face mask.

:shock: Are you certain that there's no asbestos up there? :shock:

That's weird... thought I responded to your post yesterday Keith... anyway, I figure it must be ok, because my electrician and contractor both spent days at a time up there working on the house remodel and never mentioned the possibility of asbestos. And from other discussions with the electrician, he's pretty tuned into that stuff. So, I've got about 2/3 of the the drywall and accompanying insulation down and cleaned up. Fun times, let me tell you. The rest will probably come down tomorrow. There's the old metal garage door I need to deal with, and above that is what's left of the drywall. So, my question for the day: The wall I took the stucco off (see above) as the firebreak blocks inbetween the studs. Since I'm doing a two wall system, there's no point in those right? Seems like beefing up that wall would be easier without those blocks in there. So, can I cut them out?

Personally, I would leave them in place and work around them. I had a few of them to work around myself: Bottom line: "When in doubt, do no harm." :) --Keith :mrgreen:

Well, the thing is, they aren't in there that good... like I can see between the piece and the stud, which looks like a hole in the beef to me. And sawing those nails and popping them out would be quick and painless, but if we think there might be something structural going on with them, then I wouldn't want to... I mean, the house has been there for 30 years... they aren't going to warp anymore now...

The fire stops should be providing some type of support to structure, if they were at an angle it would be more. If it were me without thinking about fire stopping I’d leave them because maybe they are holding a warped stud(s) in place and that is a guess on my part :wink: but… If the wall is going to be above 8’ then your code should be… you need them. Since you got a permit, did your architect include any fire stopping in the plan? You might get in trouble for taking them out when it comes to inspection (unless you bury the wall out of site). It might be worth it to give inspector a call. But then again, I find alarming the amount of violations including fire stopping, I here about inspectors missing, at least here in Florida. They let (or builders some how hide) 12’ and 15’ walls pass without fire stopping :shock: :shock: But then comes the issues of the big old space in between the walls where fire would just travel up freely anyways :? Did you buy Rods book? Really I’d love to be able to provide links to everything in Rods’ book but… Hope Rod does no get mad at me for sharing this… but it’s a brilliant idea and hopefully a slight persuasion for any forum reader to buy the book :D Basically he suggests a method using a piece of drywall laid flat to connect and couple double walls, creating a fire stop. To decouple this drywall a bit, it sits on mineral wool, calk and baker rod… which all sits on the 2x4 plates with another piece of lumber holding it down from the top. Suggestion is to put it at the top of the wall so fire stopping is effective from double wall cavity to double ceiling cavity. Only question is losing a couple dB’s of isolation & and extra work of building the fire stop be worth having a safer structure… that would be while it’s burning… will the extra time you’ll have for the fire department to arrive be enough to save your house and gear? There is also the method on Sharwards thread, well his inspectors method (I think) where the insulation from each double wall touches. So after I’ve written and rethought all that, I’m still 50/50 whether you should take them out or not. :roll: :oops: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: Marc

So, I talked with my contractor about those "firestops" and before I could finish asking he said, "oh yeah, take them out". He said they weren't required for codes, and even less so because of our doublewall construction. And he said they weren't structural at all, other than to keep the studs from warping, but because the house is old, they probably aren't going to move much, especially after I beef up the wall. So, I'll probably chop 'em out. In other news, I'm hard at work demoing the exterior wall that has more stucco and far worse, heavy rock on the outside. I borrowed a friend's roto-hammer, which is the deal for such things. The last bit of this rock I removed from a wall in the house, I used a chisel and a little 2 pound sledge. Needless to say, I vote power tools. My truck bed is sagging under the weight of the extra mortar that I've chipped out. Looks like I'll have to make two dump runs to get rid of all the mortar I'm removing. We're going to reuse the rock for patios and things, some of which is 4 or 5 inches thick... the real thing, none of this "cultured stone". I think it's going to take me a couple more days of this to get it all down.

Dude! That's the same gear I used to chip away at my foundation! 8) That's some gorgeous rock... You're wise to keep it around. :-) --Keith :mrgreen:

It's only gonna be gorgeous when it's all off my house and all the rubble is at the dump. That stuff is flippin' heavy. It does make nice walkways and the like though. And yeah, that roto-hammer thing is pretty cool. Though I'm finding muscles that I haven't used in a while with it.

So, I went to get rid of the load of rubble yesterday. I went to the county dump and they were going to charge me $200 to dump it. A nice lady over there said, "I didn't tell you this", because she works there, "but the sand and gravel place across the street is where you want to take this stuff, then you can come back and buy me lunch with all the money you save". So, I go over there, get on the big truck scale for a "heavy" weight, then go unload, and go back for a "light" weight. Came to 2660 lbs... holy crap! And they charged me $19.95 to dump it. That's more like it. I probably have one more load not quite that big for the rest of the rock walls. In other news, I finished figuring out the cable runs and snakes I'm going to need. I'm stronly leaning to wiring the place with all AES digital cable. Probably Belden 1800 series. Gonna start fishing for a supplier this week. And in other really good news, I'm probably going to be hired by my church to be a part time "Musical Director" for the worship band (not a worship leader or pastor, but just dealing with making the band better and arranging the music). And in the deal we're talking about is a Yamaha C-3 (6' 1") piano that''s been on stage, which will be replaced with a nice Yamaha P250 digital piano. We run all in-ear monitors with the Aviom systems, so trading an acoustic piano for a good digital will be a lot more about visual aestetics than sound. And we're sure there'll be a minor uproar about the piano being gone, but I'm ok with that because the piano will be sitting in my house! HA! It's going inside the house, but I'm going to run tie lines to the studio so that should the need arise I can easily record it. It was made in '72 so it's not exactly mello, but the action is great and will be an ideal instrument for my boys to learn on. And Daddy will enjoy playing it too! Not sure why you should care at all about all that... but I guess it's sort of related to the studio.

Wow, that's quite a money savings! 8) I hope you bought that lady lunch -- she deserves it! :D Also, that's very cool news about the church gig and piano score! :) And it's absolutely related to your studio build! Besides, it's your thread, so even if it were off topic, you'd be entitled! :twisted: --Keith :mrgreen:

So, I took the last of the rubble to the concrete place, and I'm about to load up the truck with the last of the stucco from the inside walls and the big ol' ugly aluminum garage door. Then, I think we're pretty much there to start some actual building, as opposed to tearing stuff apart. I think one of the first things we have to do is seal up the cracks in the slab. At this point, we're thinking we'll seal it up, then build the wall frames, and then pour self-leveling epoxy concrete stuff in each room to level the floors... the thinking being that it'll be a lot easier to deal with individual rooms than the whole slab, and then we won't be worried about driving the pins into the softer epoxy to hold the walls in place. But as always, plans may change when we get into it. First up is some beef on the existing wall... gotta get ahold of a table saw...