Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Still no Ashkahn today. He’s taking a couple of post-conference days to himself.
Jake and Graham are on the scene though to answer construction questions, though. Even the straight forward ones, like today. Jake informs us which to choose when doing construction, light or heavy gauge studs when constructing a float center, while getting a little sidetracked when comparing wooden and metal studs.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Alright, welcome everybody. This is Graham over here.
Jake: And this is Jake over here.
Graham: The man with the lesson.
Jake: Oh, something with the lesson.
Graham: And today’s-
Jake: We have a question.
Graham: Question. Yeah, I guess, first of all there’s no Ashkahn so if you’re expecting Ashkahn, you were wrong and you should feel bad about it. And so it’s just Jake and I rocking it out. Answering some construction stuff. And today’s question is “what are your thoughts on heavy versus light gauge studs?”
Jake: My thoughts on heavy versus light gauge studs.
Graham: So they’re talking about metal studs.
Jake: Of course.
Graham: Because you don’t have gauges of wood.
Jake: No, they’re talking about metal studs here and you have a whole range of gauges. What do we see? A lot of 20? 20 gauge is what we’ve come across as the most common.
Graham: Yeah, I think especially when you’re dealing with commercial construction, not residential, when we’re gonna be putting some heavy sheets of drywall on our walls most commonly. So I think a lot places 25 is the requirement, but 20 is really common.
Jake: Yeah, definitely. Probably more common for what we want with our very heavy walls like you’re saying. But to get back to the question, light gauge versus heavy gauge.
Graham: And so either of those would be light gauge.
Jake: Right.
Graham: 20/25, that’s light.
Jake: Absolutely. I guess the answer there is light gauge. Unless it’s load bearing. If you’re not holding up part of the property, if you’re not putting tanks on the second floor, if it’s not load bearing, then light gauge studs are definitely the answer.
Graham: And that’s pretty much the alternative to wood studs. You don’t really see heavy gauge steel studs used as just an alternative to standard wood studs in framing or anything like that. Light gauge is the alternative.
Jake: And we like metal studs for a couple reasons. If you do end up with a moisture problem in your wall or something like that, metal stud holds up better than a wooden stud. A wooden stud is gonna swell, it’s gonna flex. Mold and mildew can grow through it. Whereas a metal stud is not gonna suffer that sort of damage. What else do we like about them?
Graham: Well, in some places they’re required for commercial construction.
Jake: Yeah. In some places you just have no choice. So we love them.
Graham: They don’t flex with the seasons as much in general.
Jake: If you have a good thermal barrier. If you have a good thermal break in between an exterior environment and an interior environment. When we were down in Australia they were mentioning that they’d experience some problems with that from time to time if they didn’t have a good thermal break because it would be really, really hot outside.
Graham: Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s Australia too.
Jake: Yeah, right. Usually in spring and fall is when the houses were changing and stuff like that. That’s what we heard.
Graham: So does that mean that the metal actually expands and contracts more than the wood is going to change with the seasons?
Jake: It has worse thermal resistance. Yeah, that is kinda one of the down sides of metal studs. The thermal resistance is not as high as it is for wood.
Graham: But does it actually grow and shrink more with the thermal changes? I mean it definitely is affected more but-
Jake: I think it is, right? Because that’s where you’re getting those popping. That’s where you’re getting that sound. And they do flex. Especially if you go lighter gauge studs. If you’re looking at 25 gauge, those flex much more than 20 gauge which is flexing more than 18.
Graham: This is why we have Jake on the show for construction stuff. Yeah, I thought the metal flexed less than wood. That’s interesting.
Jake: I mean I don’t know the difference between the two. What I know is that metal is flexing. Metal is doing something. I don’t know which is flexing more.
Graham: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. No, it makes sense. Especially in Australia.
Jake: Yeah.
Graham: Okay. So just ignore that whole flexing. But that’s no longer a point of benefit for the metal.
Jake: They don’t rot like wooden ones do. They can be considered greener because they’re using recycled content as opposed to wood.
Graham: Okay. But back to the original question. So light versus heavy gauge studs.
Jake: Light gauge studs, unless it’s load bearing.
Graham: Ding. A little extra bonus content with wood versus steel in there too. But yeah, anything else?
Jake: No, no, no, great. I love them.
Graham: Good question.
Jake: Yeah, great question.
Graham: Bravo. Bravo. Encore.
And if you have questions of your own, just head on over to floattanksolutions.com/podcast. We’ll be there waiting. We’re always waiting. Talk to you tomorrow.
Jake: Goodbye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How to Help Float Research – DSP 300
With the push from Justin Feinstein at LIBR to get more float centers involved in research, many float center owners are chomping at the bit to push studies forward on the benefits of floating. But where do you start and how do you make it happen?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss this idea and how to do research right, as well as some of the things that might be helpful OR harmful to the world of floating in the eyes of the scientific community. There’s a lot of nuanced things to know about proper research and if you go in overzealous without considering how established science is done, it can harm the reputation of the practice.
Tips on Running Power to Float Rooms – DSP 299
Graham and Ashkahn offer some helpful tips to keep in mind when planning out the electrical framework for your float rooms. How many circuits you should plan for, where to place outlets, GFCI compliance, just to name a few.
Definitely an essential episode for anyone to listen to before going into their build-out phase.
Floating in National Media – DSP 298
Seeing float tanks in the national news and culture has increased in regularity within the last few years. Graham and Ashkahn discuss how these things get on such a large platform. The guys briefly go over some of the major stories that have been all over the media and how those stories happened. Mostly it comes down to luck, but there are a few things that can increases the chances of your float center getting on national TV.
The Real Tips on Building Your Own Float Tank – DSP 297
Someone wrote in and asked, again, despite the repeated warnings of the previous episode covering this topic, how to build a float tank properly.
Graham and Ashkahn try their best to restrain themselves and offer some practical advice about how to build your own tanks while also repeatedly warning about things to look out for when going forward with the process.
How to Handle Other Float Centers Spying on You – DSP 296
Graham and Ashkahn talk about how they deal with other float centers spying on Float On.
Basically… they don’t. The float industry is a really open community and a lot of information is generally freely available. If someone is spying on a float center, that could be a result of poor communication skills or a lack of awareness of what information is actually out there. The guys share their advice on how to talk to someone who might be in that situation and how to move forward, hopefully as friends instead of rivals.
Latest Blog Posts
Reflections from the Rise Float Gathering
Over this past weekend, a good chunk of the Float Tank Solutions and Float Conference crew ventured to St. Louis, MO for the first ever Rise Community Float Gathering. Beyond our excitement to see old friends and meet new ones, we were thrilled to be able to attend a float event that we didn’t have to plan.
When it comes to float tanks, we often deal with a lot of the “what” and the “how” of things – what do I need to do to open a float center and how to I make everything work? We write blogs and put out content. We spend our days thinking about conference flowcharts, water chemistry, detailed business plans, soundproof insulation, etc.
Rise, on the other hand, focused on the “why?”
The Story Behind the Float Marketing Forum
Over the past few years, primarily through feedback received from conference attendees and through industry survey responses, float center owners struggled with and wanted a solution to one thing… marketing. It makes sense – if there’s one thing every center needs (besides salt), it’s a solid flow of customers in tanks.
After some brainstorming with Ashkahn, we’ve decided the best solution for this year was to host a series panels covering key marketing topics that will provide the biggest impact in growing your float center business.
Introducing: The Float Conference Marketing Forum.
Announcing the 2nd Ever Start-a-Center Giveaway WINNER!
In what was one of the most difficult decisions that we had to make as a team… and after sorting through nearly 200 entries… we’ve decided upon a winner in our second ever Start-a-Center Giveaway.
Read more to learn who we’ll be guiding through the process in starting a float tank center in their community.
Gut your space before construction!
One line we don’t think you should cross is this: as much as possible, when building out your float center, gut it completely. Start from scratch.
At least then the mistakes you make are your own and your building will hold fewer surprises down the line. There are many benefits that you may not think of immediately. In this post, we’ll guide you through some of them.
