External Wall Construction

[kendale]

Hello all,

Well, I did a search for this topic but perhaps missed it.

What would be the correct sequence for exterior to interior wall construction? (Exterior siding - 2 layers plywood or OSB - Tyvex - studs - air - 3" OC 703 - RC - 2 layers sheetrock - slat resonator)

Thanks!

[knightfly]

That will work - assuming you need the slat resonator. Also, for several dB better isolation you can use double frames and no RC - the outer frame would just have paneling on the outside, the inner frame only on the inside - up to 12" air gap if you can spare the space, beyond that it's very much a diminishing return. In fact, beyond 8" total air gap only helps low end somewhat. You could expect 71 dB STC for both 8" and 12" air gap, assuming your chosen materials - however, the TL @ 50 hZ would be 4-5 dB better with the 12" wall, which translates to better neighbor relations for drummers, with no change in material costs and only 4" less floor space per wall.

Also, from newer information 703 may be a waste of money inside a wall; nearly identical results have been gotten with ordinary spun fiberglass, with a snug fill to help damp the wall panels.

In your case, ANY insulation might be expensive - when I lived there, most of the houses didn't even HAVE a place for insulation, since the boards you saw on the inside were the boards you saw on the outside

Just kidding, I know energy conservation's changed all that - still, it should be easier to get regular fiberglass insulation than the rigid kind - should keep costs down if you only need the stiff stuff for acoustic treatments... Steve

[kendale]

Thanks Steve, I appreciate your response to my question, even though it's probably been covered here somewhere before.

Actually, things haven't changed much since you were here. Other than the fact that there's more people and traffic, it's still expensive to be here, it's still hard to get some of this stuff readily, and there's still some of that "what you see on the inside is what you see on the outside" going on. It's got something to with "location, location, the key is location." That thought made me laugh to think I've lived in some of those places.

While there's a lot more double construction going, I can think of only three homes that I've been to here that actually had some kind of insulation. You would think that it's gotta help keep some of the heat out as well as keeping it in as in stateside.

Again, thank you.