Acoustic sealant for sealing between plywood subfloor and wall bottom plate
For our home construction project we need to decide what sealant to use between the subfloor and the bottom plate. Our builder commonly uses Tremco Acoustical Sealant for this purpose. While I gather from the information in this community and generally on the web that this product is mentioned and used very often, the reservation I have is its very high VOC content. There are acoustical sealants with considerably lower VOC content available but as a lay person I cannot judge their quality and durability and choose one over the other, such as: OSI Green Series SC-175; LePage Green Series Draft & Sound; SilenSeal Acoustical Sound Sealant, and probably others. Or should we go to a structural gasket product such as that available from Conservation Technology? With the latter I would have to import it from the US into Canada (Pacific Northwest, climate zone 4C in BC) with unknown price implications through import duties.
Any input that could facilitate our decision would be welcome. Many thanks in advance.
Manfred
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Replies
Manfred,
The Tremco sealant works well. We sell it but I like that your counting the VOC's. You are inspiring me to look further...
We ship to Canada fairly often and the cost is really not to bad. If you'd prefer the gaskets from RCT, then don't let the duty stand in your way. I'd guess that they are well versed in crossing the boarder. We find that it costs much less if you use your own customers broker rather than FedEx or UPS on package shipments. USPS (US mail) is really reasonable too depending on how big the rolls are.
I like gaskets better than sealants and the wood dries, the gaskets seem to be better long term. we use DOW sill seal and get very good results.
Danny, do you mean between the plywood subfloor and the wood bottom plate?
It's been 12 years; there is a good chance he won't see this. I have used gaskets between plates and sheathing and between drywall and framing.
Albert and Danny, many thanks for your input. We'll decide this week which way to go.
Manfred
Manfred, we offer Pro Clima's adhesive that don't dry out, do not embrittle and are still plenty strong and durable. CONTEGA HF does contain low VOC amount of natural ethanol (aka alcohol), our ECO COLL adhesive is VOC free and all natural - see our airsealing accessories page
More info on the strength of the Pro Clima airsealing adhesives can be found here
Just like Albert, foursevenfive.com can ship to Canada, but custom brokerage indeed do need to be accounted for