How To Estimate For Our Products

Try our Green Glue Compound calculator

Scroll down the page to use our Green Glue calculator. It will help you calculate the total amount of Green Glue you need down to the very tube in each of the application levels. The calculator also calculates Green Glue in buckets when using our dispensing gun. For accurate application of Green Glue use either the Green Glue tubes or our Green Glue Dispensing Gun with our five gallon Green Glue buckets.

Buckets are the affordable alternative to Green Glue tubes. But often project square footage does not divide evenly into full buckets. You can help combat this by supplementing the five gallon buckets with tubes to help reduce overall costs.

Coverage Comparison

Supreme: 3 tubes per 4' x 8' sheet or 1 tube per 10 square feet, will provide no audible improvement in STC ranges over Normal coverage option, but it will provide a roughly 40% increase in low frequencies over the Normal coverage option. Supreme coverage is useful in home theaters, recording studios, and band practice areas when a high level of performance in low frequencies is required.

Normal: 2 tubes per 4' x 8' sheet or 1 tube per 16 square feet, is the recommended coverage amount for most sound isolation projects. Normal coverage yields great results in both STC ratings (high frequency) and OITC ratings (low frequency). Normal coverage is the coverage used in all Green Glue tests available online.

Good: 1 tube per 4' x 8' sheet or 1 tube per 32 square feet, is a cost effective solution for sound isolation problems. The performance of this coverage amount is about 35% less than results provided by Normal coverage, but Good coverage still outperforms products like sound board, homasote, and resilient channel. Definitely worth considering if you are on a budget, but still want a higher level of performance than other options.

Green Glue Sealant (Acoustic Caulk) tubes are 28 ounce tubes that fit in quart sized caulking guns. Most gaps should be 1/8" to 1/4" wide with a depth of at least 1/4".

If you were to use Green Glue Sealant on a wall or ceiling where the sheetrock is hung well, you can estimate around 1 tube per 100 square feet of wall space or ceiling space. If you are using Green Glue Sealant on both layers of sheetrock then be sure to include both layers in total square footage.

It is difficult to measure the exact amount of Green Glue Sealant you will need for your project, but these numbers have been mostly successful for our customers. If you need help estimating for Green Glue Sealant then please contact us.

Try our resilient sound clip calculator

Estimating how many resilient sound clips you need is the same for Green Glue Clips, RSIC-1 clips, or GenieClips. You will want to space the sound clips 48" apart for maximum resiliency, but you will need to decide whether you should space your hat channel rows 16" apart or 24" apart.

16" on center: Space your hat channel 16" on center if you are using 3 layers of drywall.

24" on center: (The recommended spacing of hat channel) Space your hat channel 24" on center if you are using 1 or 2 layers of drywall. We recommend two layers of drywall for drastically improved results.  Also, all sound tests you will see for any resilient sound clip are done with 24" spacing of hat channel.

Layout is another aspect to estimating resilient sound clips. There are two options for laying out your resilient sound clips. The standard layout uses the least amount of clips and is the most common way to layout resilient sound clips. The other option is the staggered layout. 

It is believed that the staggered layout increases the effectiveness of the clips being used. You may notice from the layout images in our resilient sound clip installation guide that the staggered layout uses more clips than the standard layout. The staggered layout will require you to include roughly 10% more clips to your estimating total over the standard layout. We suggest using the standard layout since the increase in performance of staggering the clips is minimal and ultimately costs more money and takes more time to layout a staggered clip pattern.

Doors and Windows: Doors and windows will increase the number of clips you need for your project. Add 7 clips for every door in the room and anywhere from 6 to 12 clips for every window in the room. Each door will require 2 clips as the door header and each window will require 2 clips above and below the window.

For Walls

If you are planning to install our TotalMass Barrier vertically in a wall, then follow these steps for estimating how much you need:

• Measure the length of the wall and round up to the nearest foot divisible by four (i.e. a 10'6" wall would round up to 12'). This number will be represented as 'A'.
• Measure the height of the wall from floor to ceiling. Round up to the nearest foot (i.e. 7'9" would be 8'). This number will be represented as 'B'
• Multiply A x B. The result is 'C'. This is the total square feet of TotalMass Barrier required to cover your wall.
• Divide C by the width of the roll you are purchasing (either 4' or 4.5'). This final number is the total linear feet required to cover your wall.

TotalMass Barrier is sold in rolls of varying lengths and widths. Remember to purchase the corresponding rolls that best fit your custom needs. For example, if you need 70 linear feet of material, you can purchase two 25' rolls and two 10' rolls instead of three 25' rolls. This will save you money on both the material and the cost of shipping as well.

Example: The above wall is 8' tall x 10'6" wide. To estimate for 1 LB TotalMass Barrier, take the width of 10'6" and round up to the nearest number divisible by 4 which is 12. Multiply 12 by the height of the wall which is 8 and you will have the number 96. Divide that number by the width of the roll which for this example it will be 4. The result for 96 divided by 4 equals 24. This number represents the total linear feet required to cover this wall. So for this wall you can plan on using (1) 4' x 25' roll of TotalMass Barrier to cover the entire wall and have a little scrap left over.

For Ceilings and Floors

If you are planning to install our TotalMass Barrier on your floor or ceiling, then follow these steps for estimating how much you need:

• Measure the width of the floor or ceiling and round up to the nearest foot divisible by four (i.e. a 10'6" wall would round up to 12'). This number will be represented as 'A'.
• Measure the length of the floor or ceiling. Round up to the nearest foot (i.e. 7'9" would be 8'). This number will be represented as 'B'.
• Multiply A x B. The result is 'C'. This is the total square feet of TotalMass Barrier required to cover your floor or ceiling.
• Divide C by the width of the roll you are purchasing (either 4' or 4.5'). This final number is the total linear feet required to cover your floor or ceiling.

TotalMass Barrier is sold in rolls of varying lengths and widths. Remember to purchase the corresponding rolls that best fit your custom needs. For example, if you need 70 linear feet of material, you can purchase two 25' rolls and two 10' rolls instead of three 25' rolls. This will save you considerably on both the cost of material and the cost of shipping.

Example: This example floor layout does not have equal dimensions for width and length so to properly calculate for the amount of material required you will need to break this floor into sections. The first section will include section 2 and 3 which have overall dimensions of 10' W x 12' L. Round the width up to the nearest number divisible by four which is 12 and then multiply that by the length of the section which is also 12. The resulting number is 144 and this is the total square footage needed to cover section 2 and 3. The remaining area, section 1, of this floor example is 6' W x 6' L. Round the width up to the nearest number divisible by four which is 8 and then multiply that by the length of the section which is 6. The resulting number is 48 and this is the total square footage needed to cover the final section. Add the number 144 and the number 48 together and then divide that number by the width of the rolls you plan to purchase (either 4' or 4.5'). If you plan to purchase 4' wide rolls then divide the number 4 into 192 (144+48) to find the total linear feet of material required for all three sections. The resulting number will be 48 linear feet which means (2) 4' x 25' rolls of TotalMass Barrier will easily cover this floor leaving very little in scrap material.

If you are plan to install our QuietGround Underlayment on your floor, then follow these steps for estimating how much you need:

• Measure the width of the floor and round up to the nearest foot divisible by four (i.e. a 10'6" wall would round up to 12'). This number will be represented as 'A'.
• Measure the length of the floor. Round up to the nearest foot (i.e. 7'9" would be 8'). This number will be represented as 'B'
• Multiply A x B. The result is 'C'. This is the total square feet of QuietGround Underlayment required to cover your floor or ceiling.
• Divide C by the width of the roll which is 4'. This final number is the total linear feet required to cover your floor or ceiling.

QuietGround is sold in different lengths for each thickness. Comparing the overall costs of each thickness is simple now that you have estimated the total linear feet required for your floor.

Example: This example floor layout does not have equal dimensions for width and length so to properly calculate for the amount of material required you will need to break this floor into sections. The first section will include section 2 and 3 which have overall dimensions of 10' W x 12' L. Round the width up to the nearest number divisible by four which is 12 and then multiply that by the length of the section which is also 12. The resulting number is 144 and this is the total square footage needed to cover section 2 and 3. The remaining area, section 1, of this floor example is 6' W x 6' L. Round the width up to the nearest number divisible by four which is 8 and then multiply that by the length of the section which is 6. The resulting number is 48 and this is the total square footage needed to cover the final section. Add the number 144 and the number 48 together and then divide that number by the width of the rolls which 4' to find the total linear feet of material required to cover the floor. The resulting number will be 48 linear feet which means (2) 4' x 30' rolls of QuietGround 250 will easily cover this floor leaving a little in scrap material.

For quick estimating based on square footage over a large area, estimate 1 IsoJoist per .65 square feet (i.e. 65 IsoJoists per 100 square feet of floor).

For estimating to the exact number of IsoJoists required for your floor, plan for 7 IsoJoists per 8' linear feet of joist (assuming 8' long joists are used). Typically for lengths shorter than full 8' joists estimating can be accomplished by dividing the total linear inches of the joist by 16 and then add 1 to that number (i.e. for a 4'8" joist, multiply 4 x 12 and then add the 8" to find the total linear inches, divide by 16 to get 3.5, then add 1 to that and round up to the nearest number resulting in 5 IsoJoists needed for the 4'8" long joist).

To properly frame when using IsoJoist you will need to space each joist 16" apart on center. Spacing the joists 24" on center or even further apart can cause issues with resonance and, in some situations, problems with basic stability. Within 6" of each end of the joist will require an IsoJoist attached for support and from there an IsoJoist every 16" in between each end.