Homasote Products?

[Chris Padilla]

www.homasote.com (http://www.homasote.com/)

Anyone have any experience with the products at the above web site? I caught their ad in the back of This Old House mag and I clicked around a bit on the site.

I'm wondering if I should consider their 440 SoundBarrier product for my garage instead of sheetrock? Looking at some rough numbers, material cost would be double to triple that of 5/8" fire-rated sheetrock and I've no clue about install. I'd have to ask my sheetrock guy what he thinks about it or if he has ever worked with it. He already quoted me $400 to rock my garage with the 5/8".

Is this stuff a wood-product or a paper-product or what? What is it like? Maybe it is more robust than sheet-rock in the shop/garage??

Thanks!

Edit: Nevermind...had I read a bit more I would have realized that they recommend normal sheetrock OVER the top of this product. Forget that!! :D

[Jim Becker]

In the house I grew up in, Homasote was what was on the walls with paint on it. The mice IN the walls loved it as it was easy to climb with their nice little claws! (There was no insulation to impede them, either...

I used it on the outside of my original DC closet. Norm used it on the ceiling of the "Garage Workshop" project as well as for many years as a throw-away surface over this bench during assembly. Very messy to cut with a normal circular saw or table saw...the "fuzzies" fly all over. But I bet an ATF with a CT would work very nicely...hee hee.

[Steve Clardy]

Contractors around here usually just double up the rock for noise barriers. 2 sheets of 1/2". Makes quite a lot of difference, and at a reasonable cost. Be sure to move your receptacle and switch boxes out farther if you do this.

Your brother:eek:

[Chris Padilla]

I think I'll stick with good insulation and a single sheet of 5/8". Some stuff (i.e. plumbing) would be a real PITA to move out further to take a double-hanging of 1/2". Still, there are other spots that might work to do this on.

Let me ask you this: Since I need a fair amount of fire-rated drywall, would the first hanging of 1/2" need to be fire-rated assuming the second hanging is fire-rated? Doing the ceiling under the upper-story room in a double-hanging might not be a bad idea....

[Steve Clardy]

I think I'll stick with good insulation and a single sheet of 5/8". Some stuff (i.e. plumbing) would be a real PITA to move out further to take a double-hanging of 1/2". Still, there are other spots that might work to do this on.

Let me ask you this: Since I need a fair amount of fire-rated drywall, would the first hanging of 1/2" need to be fire-rated assuming the second hanging is fire-rated? Doing the ceiling under the upper-story room in a double-hanging might not be a bad idea....
Not sure what to tell you about whether you need double the fire rated rock or 1 layer of fire rated and 1 layer of regular Chris. You might check on your codes there. Around here the contractors usually do 1 fire rated and 1 standard rock, to save a little moola.
Considering the price not being much more, to be safe I would go with two sheets of fire rated.
Here in my county, codes are pretty much non-existentent, except for sewer codes. Building, wiring, rocking, nothing is checked on, nor has to be approved. Just build it. And there is some pretty trashy unsafe work done here because of the no codes.
Steve

[Jim Becker]

Contractors around here usually just double up the rock for noise barriers. 2 sheets of 1/2".
Steve, do any of them employ the stand-offs to provide an air barrier between the layers for more sound-abatement?

[Steve Clardy]

Steve, do any of them employ the stand-offs to provide an air barrier between the layers for more sound-abatement?
Some do, some do not. I have seen some of them use strips of 1/4" luan also.
Steve

[Jamie Buxton]

Chris, I've been seriously studying up on noise control recently. For some reason, my neighbors aren't happy to listen to a 12" planer going full tilt, with the DC sucking air past the head. That's called a siren in other circumstances.

As far as I can tell, applying a noise reduction scheme to only your walls won't help a great deal. You'll still have lots of sound being conducted through the garage door, and leaking around the edges.

In your place, I'd just go with the firecode rock -- that is, one layer of 5/8 Type X -- and confine your loudest noise-making to hours that won't irritate your neighbors and family too badly.

[JayStPeter]

Chris,

All my noise reduction research led me to the conclusion that the best thing to do is insulated cavities with resilient channel, a layer of homosote and a layer of drywall. Apparently, the homosote and drywall have complimentary sound absorption/reflection characteristics.

Jay

[Chris Padilla]

I'm not terribly worried about the neighbor (more or less only one to worry about); I'm more worried about keeping the noise out of the house as much as possible. I have a ceiling and a half-wall and a stair-well who share walls/floors with the garage. I am thinking that with some planning, I can try and sound-insulate as much as possible those areas. I can save some time/money/labor as well by only insulating those areas. Shouldn't be too bad. By creating this partition wall for the washer/dryer area, I've already masked off a fair section of shared wall so that's cool.

Thanks for the thoughts, Folks! :)

Jay I recall all your work with sound...could you kindly post the website(s) regarding the resilient channel?