Hey folks,

I'm quickly approaching the start of the construction phase of my HT project. We're all set to go on Sept 10th. I met with the contractor again last night to go over some final pre-planning. I'm going to start ordering materials in the next day or two. He asked me if I wanted to go with wood or steel studs. I hadn't even considered steel, but after he mentioned it, it makes perfect sense as the theater is going in my basement. This should help prevent damage should there ever be any water in the basement.

Is there any drawback with steel studs? Has anyone used them in their home theater projects? The walls will be insulated and both sides of the walls will be finished with drywalled. Are there any possible vibration problems that don't exist with wood?

Thanks for any insight.

Bump....

No one has any thoughts on this? Has any one used steel studs in their HT?

I'm starting to get a bit scared due to what appears to be a lack of experience with steel studs in HTs. :confused:

As far as I know, the best thing about steel is less danger of termites -- although you'll have to have steel main beams for that, not just the drywall support. Helps a bit with fire, too.

If you go to a commercial building site and look at "steel" wall construction, it's really more like thin plates broken into a Z for each stud. I would assume there is no difference for sound. However, I would make sure that the walls around it are fully insulated, to reduce resonance in the walls. If you're worried about sound leakage, you might also want to consider double-walling it using Green Glue; that's likely to make more of a difference than steel vs wood.

Last: if you ever get water in the basement, won't the steel rust? It's not stainless. I'd probably go with whatever the contractor thinks is cheapest to install.

Steel stud walls are more flimsy, they do not rot though. Vibration of conduits running through them may be more of an issue than with wood, as might also reverberation from your sub. I'm a commercial electrical contractor, and I chose wood for my HT, but I'm in an area where water and termites are not an issue.

Steel studs cost slightly more, but take less time to install for a professional.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the replies guys. Some very good points. The vibrations were my main concern. I'll double check with my contractor and if we decide to continue with the steel, I think the fully insulated and drywall on both sides of the walls will compensate for any vibration issues.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

It is my understanding that although the basement may be dry, placing steel on top of it (base plate) will still cause the steel to rust.

I have steel studs in my basement and I hate them. They feel flimsy are apt to vibrate with low frequencies and make hanging anything from them a pain the ass to say the least.

Here's more than you wanted to know about CFS studs.

http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/residential_steel_framing.pdf

As a manufacturer of CFS products and systems I can tell you that it depends a LOT on how it's put together. There are details which explain how to constuct a wall using steel studs with several different STC (Sound Transmission Class) ratings.

In a high performance Home Theater you'll utilize a lot of the same details shown here whether you're using wood or steel. My recommendation is look at the details and make a decision using the complete cost of the entire assembly regardless of whether you use wood or steel studs.