hello all.

i have recently purchased an older house (150 yrs old) in new orleans,
and want to limit the noise thats coming in as best as possible.

the current walls are plaster with an airspace and wooden studs and
then the outside siding.

depending on costs..

1. i could blow-in insulation between the current walls and the siding
2. demo the plaster apply insulation and some other material and put
up drywall
3. ???

what might that other material be?
any recommendations on blown insulation?

any links to good sites for info on this... thnx alot guys
perry

perry wrote:
hello all.

i have recently purchased an older house (150 yrs old) in new orleans,
and want to limit the noise thats coming in as best as possible.

the current walls are plaster with an airspace and wooden studs and
then the outside siding.

Often the windows are the major source of noise coming into the house. Vinyl
twin pane windows can make a dramatic difference. Of course, you have to
keep them closed, which might be inconvenient in New Orleans!

I don't know what's available down there, but here are the details of some
Yankee windows:

http://www.kaufmannwindow.com/window.htm

perry wrote:

i have recently purchased an older house (150 yrs old) in new orleans,
and want to limit the noise thats coming in as best as possible.

What kind of noise is coming in?

the current walls are plaster with an airspace and wooden studs and
then the outside siding.

depending on costs..

1. i could blow-in insulation between the current walls and the siding

This is a good idea, and it will bring your heating bills down. It may
reduce high frequency leakage too, if that is an issue.

2. demo the plaster apply insulation and some other material and put
up drywall

This will almost certainly make whatever problem you have worse, because the
drywall is so lightweight compared with the old plaster.

None of these things will do anything about low frequency stuff conducted by
the structure, which is the most common noise problem.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Often the windows are the major source of noise coming into the house. Vinyl
twin pane windows can make a dramatic difference. Of course, you have to
keep them closed, which might be inconvenient in New Orleans!

well the windows cant be changed. i can try and tighten the frames as
much as possible and perhaps add weather strip, but these are
beautiful original windows, so im not replacing them...


as far as what noise is coming through:

neighbors voices when they hang on the street (about 35 feet away)..
they tend to argue often... cars, the bus every so often....

the blown insulation sounds like the best way to go, if the dry-wall
is inferior...

In article ,
perry wrote:

well the windows cant be changed. i can try and tighten the frames as
much as possible and perhaps add weather strip, but these are
beautiful original windows, so im not replacing them...

Let me get this straight: You moved into a historic district in New
Orleans looking for peace and quiet?

perry wrote:
Often the windows are the major source of noise coming into the house. Vinyl
twin pane windows can make a dramatic difference. Of course, you have to
keep them closed, which might be inconvenient in New Orleans!

well the windows cant be changed. i can try and tighten the frames as
much as possible and perhaps add weather strip, but these are
beautiful original windows, so im not replacing them...

Don't worry about it, then. If you can't do anything about the windows,
doing anything else will be futile. Especially if they are original windows.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In Article ,
(perry) wrote:
hello all.

i have recently purchased an older house (150 yrs old) in new orleans,
and want to limit the noise thats coming in as best as possible.

the current walls are plaster with an airspace and wooden studs and
then the outside siding.

depending on costs..

1. i could blow-in insulation between the current walls and the siding
2. demo the plaster apply insulation and some other material and put
up drywall
3. ???

what might that other material be?
any recommendations on blown insulation?

any links to good sites for info on this... thnx alot guys
perry

Well if it's an old frame house with big Big Easy single pane windows,
you're sort of screwed because the noise is going to come through the
windows, even when they are closed.

Blowing in insulation won't do much. Sound/noise abatement is the result of
a DID barrier of some sort. DID referrs to Density-Isolation-Density; or two
heavy mass barriers that are separate and decoupled from each other so as
not to conduct the noise through vibration.

Even if you added a sheet of isolating foam to the inside wall and then a
layer of 5/8" sheetrock over that (or multiple layers of thinner sheetrock),
the noise coming through the windows would still get you.

Got budget for the windows too?

Regards,

Ty Ford




For Ty Ford V/O demos, audio services and equipment reviews,
click on http://www.jagunet.com/~tford

In article ,
Ty Ford wrote:

Got budget for the windows too?

Heavy (really heavy) curtains and/or screens can go a long way towards
attenuation.

Let me get this straight: You moved into a historic district in New
Orleans looking for peace and quiet?

new orleans has many historic districts. one of which is the french
quarter which you are probably thinking of. that is not the historic
district that i live in, but a short mile away. just as a point of
reference: i have lived in the french quarter in the past, and that
was the quietest block i have ever lived on. come down and visit our
great city sometime, and i hope you'll wander off the path enough to
see that how misrepresented new orleans has become in the media.

ty-- i got a budget for the windows, but i wont replace them... i can
only attempt to reduce any leakage around the windows.

i just wanted to reiterate that i am not building a recording studio
here. i just want to best knock down as many dbs in whatever freq
ranges i can...

is there any particular kind of blown insulation that works best, or
are they about the same?

thanks for all the comments... keep them coming ... and hope ill meet
some of you at tape-op-con in may which has a few events at the studio
where i intern.

In article ,
perry wrote:


Let me get this straight: You moved into a historic district in New
Orleans looking for peace and quiet?

new orleans has many historic districts. one of which is the french
quarter which you are probably thinking of.

I'm very familiar with the city. Just saying.
When I complained about noise the response was basically,
"move to the midwest".... And I'm already in the middle of the desert :-)

perry wrote:
ty-- i got a budget for the windows, but i wont replace them... i can
only attempt to reduce any leakage around the windows.

How about building covers that go over the windows and block them
completely?

i just wanted to reiterate that i am not building a recording studio
here. i just want to best knock down as many dbs in whatever freq
ranges i can...

In that case, the windows are the first place to look. I hate to tell
you this, but the first source of leakage will be through the windows,
and the second source will be structure-borne bass sounds. The latter
is MUCH harder to deal with.

is there any particular kind of blown insulation that works best, or
are they about the same?

They are all about the same, and if you have standard single-pane windows,
they won't do a bit of good.

thanks for all the comments... keep them coming ... and hope ill meet
some of you at tape-op-con in may which has a few events at the studio
where i intern.

I'm not even making the AES in Berlin this year. This spring is festival
hell.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In Article ,
(perry) wrote:

ty-- i got a budget for the windows, but i wont replace them... i can
only attempt to reduce any leakage around the windows.

Some folks have retrofitted their windows with frames that completely
emcompass each window, on the inside. They put glass or plexi in the frames
so as to add a second barrier window. That'll help. If you need to open them
from time to time you could mount bolts and slip the "windows" over them, or
maybe hinge them.

i just wanted to reiterate that i am not building a recording studio
here. i just want to best knock down as many dbs in whatever freq
ranges i can...

is there any particular kind of blown insulation that works best, or
are they about the same?

Most blown in stuff is just ground up newspaper. If your walls are really
open, it might help a little, but not much.

Ty




For Ty Ford V/O demos, audio services and equipment reviews,
click on http://www.jagunet.com/~tford

"Ty Ford" wrote in message
...
In Article ,
(perry) wrote:

ty-- i got a budget for the windows, but i wont replace them... i can
only attempt to reduce any leakage around the windows.

Some folks have retrofitted their windows with frames that completely
emcompass each window, on the inside. They put glass or plexi in the
frames
so as to add a second barrier window. That'll help. If you need to open
them
from time to time you could mount bolts and slip the "windows" over them,
or
maybe hinge them.

That's what I did with the two basement windows that are about 6 feet from
my mic. I removed the old casement windows and replaced them with a wooden
frame with a pane of 1/2 inch polycarbonate plus a paen of 1/4 inch
polycarbonate. Had I wanted to retain the original windows I could have
created a frame with the polycarbonate to fit within the interior sill and
frame of the existing windows. My result is that the occasional jet
interrupts a session. A lawn mower in my back yard right near the windows
would shut me down, but my neighbor can mow with his rider mower and I don't
hear it.


i just wanted to reiterate that i am not building a recording studio
here. i just want to best knock down as many dbs in whatever freq
ranges i can...

is there any particular kind of blown insulation that works best, or
are they about the same?

Most blown in stuff is just ground up newspaper. If your walls are really
open, it might help a little, but not much.

I've used vermiculite, expanded mica, within plasterboard walls, and it did
a remarkable job of reducing the sound transmission. Vermiculite is used
for many horticultural, insulating and industrial purposes, but it was
Malcolm Chisholm who suggested it as a wall filler. It definitely works
better than fiberglass wool. In addition, it seems to take all of the
resonance out of the sheet rock panels. It will blow or it will pour, which
is the way we put it in. We left a 6 inch gap in the sheet rock at the top
of the wall, filled with vermiculite up to the gap, filled the top with
fiberglass before finishing the sheet rock taping. Go here to read about
vermiculite: http://www.schundler.com/index.html

Steve King

Heavy (really heavy) curtains and/or screens can go a long way towards
attenuation.

id love to research some curtains, any links or particular
brands/models to get me strarted?

screens?? im a bit stumpted. what kind of screens?

thanks

In article ,
perry wrote:

screens?? im a bit stumpted. what kind of screens?

Big, thick, heavy wooden frames (choose a pretty hardwood if there's a
female involved), with a very, very dense material like 5/8" particle
board within the frames. (Put an oriental silk or paint a mediterranean
scene on it, again if there's a female involved.)

Make it with piano hinges so you can fold it and move it out of the way
when you want your windows back.

(perry) wrote in message . com...
hello all.

i have recently purchased an older house (150 yrs old) in new orleans,
and want to limit the noise thats coming in as best as possible.

the current walls are plaster with an airspace and wooden studs and
then the outside siding.

depending on costs..

1. i could blow-in insulation between the current walls and the siding
2. demo the plaster apply insulation and some other material and put
up drywall
3. ???

what might that other material be?
any recommendations on blown insulation?

any links to good sites for info on this... thnx alot guys
perry

The PBS show "This Old House" did a New Orleans house of
approximately the same era a year or 3 ago and I'm pretty sure it was
one of those "gotta keep the local historical commission happy" deals.
You might see if you can get tapes of those episodes to see what they
had to deal with and how they handled things.

I've used vermiculite, expanded mica, within plasterboard walls, and it did
a remarkable job of reducing the sound transmission. Vermiculite is used
for many horticultural, insulating and industrial purposes, but it was
Malcolm Chisholm who suggested it as a wall filler. It definitely works
better than fiberglass wool. In addition, it seems to take all of the
resonance out of the sheet rock panels. It will blow or it will pour, which
is the way we put it in. We left a 6 inch gap in the sheet rock at the top
of the wall, filled with vermiculite up to the gap, filled the top with
fiberglass before finishing the sheet rock taping. Go here to read about
vermiculite: http://www.schundler.com/index.html

Steve King

steve--
im very interested... ive read a bit of the site.

why did you use vermiculite over perlite?

"perry" wrote in message
om...
I've used vermiculite, expanded mica, within plasterboard walls, and it
did
a remarkable job of reducing the sound transmission. Vermiculite is
used
for many horticultural, insulating and industrial purposes, but it was
Malcolm Chisholm who suggested it as a wall filler. It definitely works
better than fiberglass wool. In addition, it seems to take all of the
resonance out of the sheet rock panels. It will blow or it will pour,
which
is the way we put it in. We left a 6 inch gap in the sheet rock at the
top
of the wall, filled with vermiculite up to the gap, filled the top with
fiberglass before finishing the sheet rock taping. Go here to read
about
vermiculite: http://www.schundler.com/index.html

Steve King

steve--
im very interested... ive read a bit of the site.

why did you use vermiculite over perlite?

Malcolm Chisholm, now deceased, but whose studio design ideas can be found
here in a site his son maintains---
http://pages.ripco.net/~chisholm/rsdp/INDEX.HTM, had previously used
vermiculite on the advice of his contractori n a disc mastering studio he
had built. It had worked well there, and it worked for us in an existing
standard 2x4 and 5/8ths sheet rock wall. We needed to reduce the
transmission from our dub room (where we made client tape and film copies
and did minor editing) into the adjacent office and waiting room spaces. I
was skeptical, as we were putting the stuff in the 6 inch gap we created at
the top of the wallboard. Adding another isolated wall was not a choice.
That would have encroached on an already too small waiting room. Of course,
I don't mean to imply that using this material will give the same results as
traditional double-wall construction, but it was much better than other
walls in the same facitlity that had common fiberglass batting between the
sheetrock panels.

Steve King

The PBS show "This Old House" did a New Orleans house of
approximately the same era a year or 3 ago and I'm pretty sure it was
one of those "gotta keep the local historical commission happy" deals.
You might see if you can get tapes of those episodes to see what they
had to deal with and how they handled things.

no worries on that front, they only concern themselves with external
appearance... other than that you can do whatever you like as long as
its up to code, like anywhere else.