Resilient Tape On Studs

[alalal2015]

Hello,

First Post here...

I'm in the process of finishing a loft conversion, one room will be an office / home studio space. I'm looking into ways to improving the sound proofing while balancing this against loosing too much space, as the room is less than 2.4m x 3.0m and the ceiling is only about 2.05m high. Every cm counts.

The sounds won't be very high, maybe acoustic guitar and singing (attempting to).

I'm wondering whether it would be worth using resilient tape on the stud walls on its own. Ie without a resilient bar system as well (I think this would lower the ceiling/bring the walls out too much).
Someone on another forum suggested it might help, but limited.

I appreciate the benefit will be less than other methods, and I'm not expecting magic.

The question is whether it is worth doing at all?

OR does anyone have any other better suggestions, with out me loosing too much of needed room space?

Here's some more information about the construction. Most of which was down to the company who put up the shell and some Building Control regs for heat insulation (eg reason for Celotex):

Walls Outside to Inside:
1. Concrete tiles
2. Breathable membrane
3. 12mm Ply
4. 100mm CLS studs with 100mm Celotex PIR insulation, all joins taped with aluminium tape.
5. 12.5mm Fermacell Board (a heavy alternative to plasterboard about 45kg/board)
6. 9mm standard plasterboard
7. Skim plaster finish

I'm thinking of either running the resilient tape up the studs.

Ceiling is similar but 150mm timbers and just 15mm GTEC dB plasterboard.
Floor is 22mm chipboard, again I am thinking to use the resilient tape. Joists are 200mm deep, but there's a bit of extra space there so I'm planning to get at least 200mm of rockwool down there.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Soundman2020]

Hi there " alalal2015", and welcome!

I'm wondering whether it would be worth using resilient tape on the stud walls on its own. Ie without a resilient bar system as well (I think this would lower the ceiling/bring the walls out too much)

Resilient channel is only a bit more than an inch thick. It takes up very little space. In fact, if you want good isolation, then "space" is an important part of that. The equations that define how much isolation you get at low frequencies have only three variables in them: 1) the mass of the wall surfaces (surface density) on each side of the cavity, 2) the depth of the air gap inside the cavity, and 3) whether or not you put insulation in the air cavity. In all cases, increasing the numbers improves isolation. More air gap, more mass, and more insulation all increase the isolation. So trying to save space on wall cavity depth, is not a good idea if you need good isolation.

I'm wondering whether it would be worth using resilient tape on the stud walls on its own.

Practically no use, for one simple reason: you still have to nail through that, and each nail is a solid, hard, rigid flanking path that short-circuits the tape, bypassing it entirely, and transferring all vibrations from the drywall into the stud. Not very effective for decoupling.

On the other hand, resilient channel really does decouple, when used correctly, since there are no solid, hard, rigid connections between the drywall and the stud.

Someone on another forum suggested it might help, but limited.

VERY limited. Not even measurable, probably.

The question is whether it is worth doing at all?

My opinion: No. A waste of time, and a waste of money.

OR does anyone have any other better suggestions, with out me loosing too much of needed room space?

Like I said above: RC only takes up a bit more than an inch: is your room really so small that even an inch is too much to lose?

Walls Outside to Inside:

Is that what is already there= Or what you are proposing to put there? All you really need to do is to put RC between the studs and the Fermacell.

Ceiling is similar but 150mm timbers and just 15mm GTEC dB plasterboard.

same thing applies here: put RC on the joists, then hang the drywall from that.

Floor is 22mm chipboard, again I am thinking to use the resilient tape. Joists are 200mm deep, but there's a bit of extra space there so I'm planning to get at least 200mm of rockwool down there.

Yes, for that application O would use the tape. That's what it is meant for. I would also add a second layer of subfloor, for extra mass, then put something like laminated flooring on top. You are not going to be doing anything that creates floor impact or high levels of floor vibrations (no drums or bass, for example), so you should be good with that. If you ever do need to do something liek that, then just build a simple "drum riser" on top.


- Stuart -