[Cob] Soundproofing , condos, being burnt out

[Amanda Peck]

Rumor hath it that straw bales don't burn very readily--as long as they are 
intact--because they are packed tightly enough that there isn't much oxygen 
in them.  This might well NOT be true of smaller, thinner packages of straw. 
  Some kind of made-for-the purpose sound-deadening sound control surface 
probably would work best.  We've all seen egg-crate walls.  But they're a 
"gotta be careful AND hope a fire doesn't break out somewhere else in the 
building."

I wonder what kind of a wall there is in that condo.  Should--for both noise 
and fire prevention--be double, with insulation, but goodness knows the 
builders skimped on as much as possible in new buildings, and who knows what 
happened in remodeling for condos.

(The one set of condo's I actually worked on had the wonderful design of 
nice big water heaters in the attic, either no stairs or flimsy "attic 
stairs".  Hey, it gave them the most square feet)

Wax-soaked anything would give me the willies--candle wicks on the ceiling, 
only deterrent to fire is lack of oxygen.  Burlap glued on as wallpaper 
makes fire marshalls nervous.

"sleeping in PJ's"  Yes.  the time I WAS burnt out of a house I had on 
holstein-patterned flannel PJ's.  Better than some of my other 
possibilities.

......................
Elizabeth writes:

Wouldn't this replace the "built-to-code" non-flammable insulation with 
something not-to-code and flammable?  Might not be a good idea in a building 
occupied by other owners.  Even tightly packed straw bricks will burn much 
faster and hotter and fiberglass insulation.

I would make the same point re the idea of using wax-soaked burlap to cover 
drafty gaps between rafters, mentioned in another thread.  This sounds like 
an extremely flammable material.

My sister once lived in a stone dormitory at  a women's college--the shell 
of the building was stone, but all the interior walls were insulated with 
1920s newspapers.  The fire department estimated the building had a fire 
life of (if I remember correctly) 30 seconds.  That is, once a single room 
was completely involved in flames, the fire would flash through the 
newspaper stuffed walls and engulf the entire building in 30 seconds.  They 
took fire drills very seriously.  A girl who chose to sleep in the buff 
would be expected to run naked down the stairs and onto the lawn at 2 a.m. 
My sister decided PJs were a good idea.

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