Multifamily party wall noise insulation by single metal and wood stud walls

Abstract

Residents of apartments with a single‐steel stud party wall were satisfied with its noise insulation. The residents of apartments with a single wood stud wall were displeased to the extent that the owner is being forced to improve the wall's noise insulation. The field sound transmission loss (FTL) of the steel stud wall and the wood stud partition wall between apartment units was measured. The equivalent STC values for these two walls were calculated from these data. The wood stud wall was found to have an equivalent STC 37 value, and the steel stud wall an equivalent STC 48 value. These STC values were found to be in basic agreement with those obtained by laboratory tests on similar walls. It was concluded that for single stud walls, wood studs are an inferior sound insulator as compared to steel studs. The reason for this is believed to be that the steel studs act as their own resilient clips. This makes the steel stud structure much more cost effective than wood stud construction for single stud walls. It was recommended to the owner that he construct an additional stud wall set apart from the existing wood stud wall to achieve acceptable noise insulation.