Roof Vents and Soffits / Sound Isolation

Sound Isolation Question/Hurdle: You spend major time and money making sure that your room within a room constructed tracking room is sealed tight for the best possible sound isolation. You also spend the extra money on doubling the exterior sheeting on the exterior of the building (for the Mass), double the drywall, and even get and use Green Glue. Then,,,,,your inspector comes and says " I assume your going to put a ridge vent on the roof, and have a soffit on the sides for ventilation,,,correct? Because you really need to have ventilation up there in that space where its insulated" :shock: Now,,,obviously my question is: Isnt adding these vent systems going to create major openings for the sound that is collected between the interior and exterior walls,,,thus just going to go to the outside world? Thus my neighbors will end up hearing noise levels. :evil: My current garage attic does not have a ridge vent, but does have electric vent fans on the roof. I sure wouldnt want these things running while trying to record>?>? Would I?? :? What's the solution to effectively vent the attic area or space over the tracking room of your studio, without compromising the integrity of the sealed building?? Thanks as always AJ

Hi there, Yeah..i want to know this too. I am putting a (relatively) soundproofed server booth in which contains the noisy things such as the console psu and the computers. It is being built into a wall and has a fan in the top. I want the expelled heat to go out a ridge vent (we call it a whirlybird) and want to know how much sound will be coming out into the open. Cheers N Y M O

Me too. There are large vent openings in the roof of our building (5700 sqft of attic space). I obviously need to have some ventilation, but would like to keep leakage from outside to a minimum. Would it be possible to install fan units with long flexduct runs to suck the air out from further away instead of directly above the ADR stage? Thanks in advance :)

Other with more experience then I may give a better answer BUT... Attic spaces have to be ventilated with soffit and ridge vents (or other venting systems of what type I'm not sure). We avoid triple leaf at all costs BUT we deal with them where we have to. Things like corners in rooms, adjacent sound iso rooms, places where we just can't cost effectively build only Mass Air Mass AND attic spaces is where many of us are forced to deal with triple leaf and we deal with it by over doing the parts/walls/ceilings we are building OR live with the results. The thread that comes to mind where the topic of triple leaf was beaten to a pulp is: Basement studio-room project in Boston area the beating of triple leaf topic goes on till at least page 2 where Rod kicks with some great comments. SO what I, Sharward, Dan F and many others are doing with attic space directly above the iso room(s) is: leave the attic as normal build with (in these cases pre existing vents). The Mass Air Mass is being built as a double ceiling of the iso room. The roof will act as a 3rd leaf BUT we are either compensating for it or willing to live with the result. Can we all afford the height/space to have a "decoupled" Mass Air Mass ceiling :lol: If planning a new building all together you should get as much hieght in the room as you can to have the space for double decoupled ceiling. And this is where I stop babbling and wait for someone else to kick in. Marc