Stud walls in stupid places

eth0_

I'm renting a brand new duplex apartment, which is fairly ok as far as apartments go, EXCEPT that every single wall apart from the four walls on the outside, are plasterboard.

This is especially irritating because my bedroom is right beside the kitchen (and openplan living room), and the head of my bed is against the adjoining wall, which means I can hear EVERYTHING in the kitchen and livingroom really loudly, and can't put the dishwasher or washing machine on at night or else I can't sleep. Hell, I can even hear the fridge!

Aren't there any building regulations regarding this in this country? I can understand the use of plasterboard walls in some cases (en suite in a bedroom, for example), but it's crazy how as the price of houses rockets, the build quality plummets!

Next time I go house-hunting I shall be tapping every single wall !

kadman

Sounds like standard spec for timberframe housing, used in conjunction with block, to achieve fast internal build layout.

Soundproofing , unfortunately, is an added extra in circumstances like this, and could be easily and cheaply done during the build. All timberframe kits are normally supplied and erected as hollow panels on all the internals. Soundproofing would be an extra specification on top of a standard tf kit, and as such would be more expensive, and needs to be highlighted at the outset of planning with the tf supplier. Can still be done at this stage, but could be costly.


kadman

gregos

Yeah. When I lived in Dublin, I had crap houses too. Builders there get away with murder.

Seriously, though, kadman is right. It's between the buyer and the developer. There are regs covering sound transmision between adjoining dwellings but sin sceal eile.

flocker

Yeah. When I lived in Dublin, I had crap houses too. Builders there get away with murder.

Gregos, they are probably working to a standard. The standard thats used provides the cheapest costing house, l know the developers/ builders are taking high margins but until the ball is back at the buyers foot the low spec house will remain unfortunately.

MorningStar

It is nothing new. I live in a house built in the 1960s and it has a few plaster board walls. The standard hasn't changed that much. Later versions of the same house do have solid walls but later again changed. In the 70s house building standards changed a lot with the introduction of many new materials and design ideas. Many estate houses built then have air vent heating in the floors and other new ideas. The sound transmission in these houses is terrible. The 80s weren't much better but they did realise some of the 70s materials weren't a good idea. From then to now I would say many materials improved like insulation standards but sizes have reduced and building has increased. THe increase of wood frame is also an issue as mentioned already but they are more environmnetally friendly compared to concrete which is pretty bad for the environment.
In saying all that there were houses being built to a better standard at the same times. The increase of the "cheaper" standard is due to demand, cost is cheaper because of time not materials as much. There wouldn't be as many houses if they built them using blockwork so house prices would be higher. The builders maybe making money but if they were suppling less people would be going mental too. The building standard are not in their control either blame the government. The tenaments of the future are being built now!

P>S> I'm not a builder but I studied civil engineering

gregos

I don't think you'll see dry-lined cavity-block walls in new houses anywhere outside the Dublin region.

FX Meister

There's a hude development in Swords that uses studded walls between seperate apartments, crazy, but people are queuing up to buy them. Builders don't have to build quality houses as people will buy them anyway.
As for the problem, isn't there some type of insulation that can be pumped into studded walls? This may be an option but I'm not sure of the price. But as you are renting it probably wouldn't be worth it anyway.