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Stud Wall Design For a Quiet Living Space

January 21st, 2008

Stud wall design plays an important role in noise transmission from room to room in your home. Staggered stud wall design can help soundproof any area of your home.

Construction begins with a wider than normal top and bottom beam, usually a 2 x 6 or a 2 x 8 instead of a 2 x 4.  2 X 4 studs are screwed in an alternating pattern along the base plate. The studs are spaced 16 inches on center across the beam and two 2×2’s are security each end to support the weight of drywall. This creates form of discontinuous construction. This prevents noise from being conducted from one sheet of drywall, through the studs, and into the next room.


StruCalc Column Design

January 21st, 2008

The column module in StruCalc is set up to design most posts in residential or light commercial projects.  The program first asks the user to specify the type of column to be designed. There are five different types of materials available in the column module:

  • solid sawn
  • glulam
  • structural composite
  • steel
  • tube steel

Each of these materials then has selections from the current National Design Specification in use for species, grade, width and depth.