I pulled my apt drywall off and now see the neighbor's...

I'm doing an renovation in a Condo apt unit I own. I just removed the drywall in my living room and now see the backside of my neighbor's insulation and his drywall. I can even see his electrical and phone outlets!

Isn't there supposed to be some sort of plywood or separation between my studs and his studs? And why don't I have my own insulation? This is kinda disturbing.

 

The builders may have taken shortcuts to save money. I don't know if you have any recourse. Are you the first owner of the Condo? If you want to file a civil suit, you may have to hire a lawyer who will check the codes & tell you if you have a case.

 

I don't know what code requires...but I'm sorta surprised you have insulation. If you mean fiberglass stuff, seems like it won't do a lot since you have a conditioned space next door.

The only condos/townhomes I've ever seen being built had block firewalls between units.If this was a converted apartment complex, I'm not sure what the rules would be on what code they would have to meet.

 

The fire codes seem to vary in different areas. In fla, the fire wall was required to either be masonry or double fire rock [5/8"] with the joints staggered. Here in tn the ones I've worked on just had 1 layer of fire rock on each side of the common wall. The fire wall is supposed to continue all the way to the roof although I've worked on more than one that didn't I saw on one of the Mike Holmes' shows where each unit had it's own separate framing.

The insulation is more for sound than heat/cold.

 

I don't quite understand why you don't think you have insulation. Is there space for additional insulation? Yes, Gungy45 is right it is more for soundproofing than heat/cold insulation. If there is room for more you can certainly add some of your own.
How deep are the studs? Do you and the neighbor share the same studs or do you have your own which are off set from his?

If you have shared studs you better screw the new drywall or else warn them when you get ready to nail it so you do not shake the pictures off the wall. Just a neighborly thing to do.

 

If you can afford to loose about six inches of room I would suggest a layer of fire rock on the existing wall and build a new stud wall about an inch away from the existing wall. If you build one part of the new wall six feet high you could cover the back side of the new wall with fire rock and tilt in to place. Then build another section to fill the remaining space to the ceiling and lift into place. Insulate and Sheetrock the front side normally. Not an engineer but in my opinion should increase soundproofing and fire protection.

While you have the wall out check that none of the neighbors receptacle boxes are feeding from yours. That happens occasionally either by accident or because the building started out as apartments with shared electric.

 

You don't have your own insulation because you don't have your own stud cavity.

Our units have double walls with fire block between and insulation on both sides for all shared walls - that's code here.