John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Howdy,

Life has its own schedule. I'm 'in' a different building. This time the studio will be on the second floor. The building is 44ft by 24ft, 2 floors, only a partial basement, and up on the second floor I'll have an area about 39ft by 24 feet for studio, control room, half bath, kitchenette, amp closets, instrument storage. Building about 100 years old - a former Grange Hall. Post and Beam frame / balloon construction ... I guess. I'm not too experienced on these things.

The contractor wants to hang ledger boards along the 44ft walls, and hang 14inch TJI's across the 24ft span. These, he says, will support the weight of the additional internal structure (walls, ceiling) on the second floor. There is no plan to float a concrete floor here. He touts the lack of transmission from the first floor that this will provide. I get that. It's great. But the noise I am hoping to attenuate is that of a busy road out front.

Gervais talks about using 2inch foam board topped by underlayment and flooring. I'm interested in this idea. Any thoughts, experience you could provide will be welcome.

I know there are untold details missing here. I'll try to provide what I can. No flames please.

Thanks
Davy

The contractor wants to hang ledger boards along the 44ft walls, and hang 14inch TJI's across the 24ft span. These, he says, will support the weight of the additional internal structure (walls, ceiling) on the second floor.

Get a structural engineer to give you the thumbs up on this. I have a 24' span with 14" TJI's for the main floor of my house at 16 OC. Since this was engineered to hold hardwood, a couch and some people sitting on the couch, I recommend checking that this design would handle another room built at least 4 times heavier than a normal room would weigh with a bunch of heavy equipment in it.

He touts the lack of transmission from the first floor that this will provide.

And yet another reason I don't trust your contractors design skills. These general contractors will try to convince you that you'll stay dry during a storm even if he doesn't put a roof on your house.

Remember to account for at least 2 layers of 3/4" OSB on your new TJI's to get that outer leaf mass up to par!

Greg

Thanks, Greg,

first for your intelligent response, second for responding at all. I was feeling pretty lonely last night when there were no responses here.

Fortunately, I found the courage to tell the contractor that I wasn't in love with his solution, and he was wise enough to suggest that we engage a structural engineer, so, my contractor is still high on my happy list.

I think you make good points (well, I agree with them anyway so at minimum you are confirming my bias, which I find hard not to welcome). I'm off to find an engineer, I guess.

This is excellent news! Keep us posted.

Greg