3 ms·

A 1/8" thick plaster layer will do very little to block sound. And drywall is 1/2" or 5/8" thick, not 3/8" as you said. Or even 1" thick (on each side) on commo

A 1/8" thick plaster layer will do very little to block sound. And drywall is 1/2" or 5/8" thick, not 3/8" as you said. Or even 1" thick (on each side) on common fire walls. Yes, drywall dents fairly easily before it's painted, but it's also extremely economical and quick to repair. Once it's primed and painted with a high-quality paint, it really does not dent that easily. My parents' 50-year-old house has the original drywall and has probably been repainted only once, and it's in remarkably good shape. And that's saying something, given that my parents raised 9 children in that house, and who knows how many before us. The biggest problem is the metal nail-on corner beads in high-flow areas going into the kitchen where it gets lots of abuse and the mud has cracked in a few spots, but modern paper-faced plastic beads solve that problem.

mindslight 4y ago
I've got experience with plaster+lath, plasterboard+veneer, and drywall walls. Plaster walls are generally much more substantial, apart from when horsehair plaster starts crumbling and pulling out of the lath. Sure you can use thicker stock than the bare minimum, or double it up for rated firewalls. I've seen such, and such walls do provide good sound isolation between apartments. Ultimately yes, a material is just a material. But it's like OSB versus plywood - you can build cheap or quality things with either, but there's certainly a correlation for what types of things get built with each one. I'm sure there's some survivorship bias - the cheaper plaster jobs probably fell apart before I was born. But none of this really changes the overarching critique of being in a cheap ranch-box, and hearing everything else going on in the house. (And for sound transmission I don't think it's the thickness itself, but rather the hardness creating more of an impedance mismatch with the air).

mindslight 4y ago

I've got experience with plaster+lath, plasterboard+veneer, and drywall walls. Plaster walls are generally much more substantial, apart from when horsehair plaster starts crumbling and pulling out of the lath. Sure you can use thicker stock than the bare minimum, or double it up for rated firewalls. I've seen such, and such walls do provide good sound isolation between apartments. Ultimately yes, a material is just a material. But it's like OSB versus plywood - you can build cheap or quality things with either, but there's certainly a correlation for what types of things get built with each one. I'm sure there's some survivorship bias - the cheaper plaster jobs probably fell apart before I was born. But none of this really changes the overarching critique of being in a cheap ranch-box, and hearing everything else going on in the house. (And for sound transmission I don't think it's the thickness itself, but rather the hardness creating more of an impedance mismatch with the air).