Bonus Room Studio - Isolation concerns

[jmtayloraudio]

I'm in the preliminary stages of planning a studio in my small unfinished bonus room. I'ts on the second floor above a garage, and fairly seperate from upstairs bedrooms except for one wall that is common with a bedroom. I want to be able to mix music and record single overdubs such as voice and guitar (70-80dB max)

My first question is:
What is my best bet for achieving isolation without radically reducing my square feet or breaking the bank?

I was considering R15 standard insulation, RC8 resilient channel hung sheetrock followed by sheetblock followed by another layer of sheetrock on the walls and ceiling. The floor would be existing sub-floor with a layer of sheetbloc followed by another layer of subfloor covered in wood laminate flooring.

Will this achieve enough iso?

Would it be cheaper to go with out the sheetbloc and use green glue to achieve similar results?

Thanks for your help.

I'm off to buy insulation and HVAC duct tomorrow.

[Soundman2020]

Hi John, and Welcome!

Will this achieve enough iso?

That's sort of like asking "Is my piece of string long enough?". The answer in both cases is: "Enough for WHAT?" You didn't mention how much isolation you need, so it's impossible to say if what you propose is "enough" to attain it!

You also didn't way what the existing construction is, so once again it's hard to say if what you propose will work or not.

The floor would be existing sub-floor with a layer of sheetbloc followed by another layer of subfloor covered in wood laminate flooring.

You better get a structural engineer in to answer that question: Nobody on an Internet forum can see what you have at present in order to determine if what you are proposing is safe or feasible. It will add many hundreds of pounds of extra mass to your floor joists, and you need expert advice on whether or not your structure can safely handle the extra load.

So your first priority should be to determine how much isolation you need (how many decibels of transmission loss), and your second priority should be to call in a certified structural engineer to inspect your place and tell you (in writing, signed) how much extra mass you can safely add inside that room.

With those two items in place, then you can figure out if it is feasible to get the amount of isolation you want without overloading your structure.

Would it be cheaper to go with out the sheetbloc and use green glue to achieve similar results?

Two different products, two different solutions to two different problems. Here too you need to define how much isolation you need, but also how much you need for each frequency range. In other words, you need to define what is the lowest frequency that you need to isolate. That will help determine if you need to spring for the GG or not.

I'm off to buy insulation and HVAC duct tomorrow.

How can you already be buying insulation, if you don't yet know what type to buy, nor what thickness, nor even how much of it?

Ditto HVAC duct: Have you done the calculations to determine your flow rate, flow velocity, total equivalent path length, and static pressure drop? You need to know those in order to determine the correct duct size. You can't just buy any old duct and hope it will be the right one...

Guessing at these things is not a good way of building a studio.



- Stuart -