Multifamily Home

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is rapidly gaining attention as an eco-friendly sustainable option to concrete and steel construction in commercial and multi-residential applications all around the world.
On the outskirts of Antwerp, a 4-storey multifamily house is being constructed in CLT. To prevent unwanted vibrations from creating a noise problem in the different apartments, the three floors are acoustically decoupled using elastic strips under the CLT walls.

Each cross-laminated timber wall - between 100 and 160 mm wide - carries a different load and therefore needed to be fitted with Straviwood WallBreak-S, a 12.5 mm thick appropriate elastic strip made of high-performance closed-cell polyurethane foam (type CDM-PF-10x), in order to get below the 30Hz decoupling requirement without excessive sagging.