ISO booth

[taylord]

Does anyone have any experience/advice on building isolation booths? We have a new music space at school in which we need to create practice rooms so I was thinking of building some small 'Booths' using stud walls with rockwool as insulation.

 

Any help appreciated.

[Simon Lewis]

Done properly, it's not "hard" to make these yourself. However, the techniques needed are different from plain stud wall building, if the practice rooms are to be truly isolated from each other and from other noise sensitive spaces.

As a school you come under BB93, which is a constraint but also a good source of information (free online, but make sure you get the latest (2015) version and read the the archived guidance). Decent isolation will probably require double overlapped plasterboard outer wall on non touching resilient offset studs and a similar double overlapped plasterboard inner wall. Try the construction shown at the bottom of page 39 in the linked PDF. Don't forget you'll need to address the issue of a decoupled floor and sealed roof section - not too easy to achieve!

 

If you just use two sheets of 12mm plasterboard screwed to studding, you may get about 35dB reduction (less with doors/windows added in). The more solid construction above can achieve 55-60dB reduction.

 

Doing it 'right' yourself is harder but can save you money. If you want a guaranteed product where all the other issues (sealed doors, acoustically treated ventilation, isolated floors etc.) have been sorted out, then consider Esmono isolation booths. They are modular and can be moved or redeployed and are pretty effective. Our radio colleagues at work have several as independent radio studios.

 

Simon

[Dave m]

What Simon says

I have converted a mate's garage to a studio which works very well but we had a family member who was a chippie and did everything else to diy standard apart from a professional plasterer.

I doubt that you would be allowed to create a good enough sytem yourself without the school's building officer getting involved and ending up with a larger bill than the flatpack option. My local uni built music practice rooms that cost thousands but they are crap because a general builder did it. Also, a mate at the uni built an "illegal wall" by adding studding across a wide corridor and adding a door. ( they did it in 1 1/2 days) The buildings people found out and came for a look see, condemned it and offered to do it for £5k. That's a stud wall 3x2 metres with a door

The premade booths can be moved and assembled elsewhere if the needs be

[Jivemaster]

After the permissions (!) it's not the board so much as the isolation of the structures so that floors inside do not drive the floor under and hence all the other floors (etc). After getting structural isolation with ventilation, power and services connected, then insulation helps.

[Dave m]

A local to me rehearsal studio ( local bands) is based in a modern industrial building but has built deconstructable? Units.

They were in one unit for a while then moved everything over a long weekend.

Another place is built in an old kitchen showroom and they are stuck with what they have

[taylord]

Done properly, it's not "hard" to make these yourself. However, the techniques needed are different from plain stud wall building, if the practice rooms are to be truly isolated from each other and from other noise sensitive spaces.

As a school you come under BB93, which is a constraint but also a good source of information (free online, but make sure you get the latest (2015) version and read the the archived guidance). Decent isolation will probably require double overlapped plasterboard outer wall on non touching resilient offset studs and a similar double overlapped plasterboard inner wall. Try the construction shown at the bottom of page 39 in the linked PDF. Don't forget you'll need to address the issue of a decoupled floor and sealed roof section - not too easy to achieve!

 

If you just use two sheets of 12mm plasterboard screwed to studding, you may get about 35dB reduction (less with doors/windows added in). The more solid construction above can achieve 55-60dB reduction.

 

Doing it 'right' yourself is harder but can save you money. If you want a guaranteed product where all the other issues (sealed doors, acoustically treated ventilation, isolated floors etc.) have been sorted out, then consider Esmono isolation booths. They are modular and can be moved or redeployed and are pretty effective. Our radio colleagues at work have several as independent radio studios.

 

Simon

 

Simon, wow, thanks for all the advice. I was looking at the Esmono booths as a serious option. Obviously all comes down to what funding we can secure. Will take a look at the PDF too.

[Simon Lewis]

After the permissions (!) it's not the board so much as the isolation of the structures so that floors inside do not drive the floor under and hence all the other floors (etc). After getting structural isolation with ventilation, power and services connected, then insulation helps.

 

In some ways, getting the floor isolation sorted for a room within a room structure sorted out is moderately easy. Starting the whole build off a "raft" that has (e.g.) 6mm neoprene (or other suitably selected isolation material) isn't hard for a bulder to follow. Getting a buidler to consistently follow proper techniques through the rest of the build is difficult. A typical problem is where they join inner and outer layers "because that'll make it stronger". Of course, as you highlighht, if they don't isolate the floor, flanking transmission will be problematic anyway!