I see nothing there that requires drywall on the other side of the wall. No requirement that the floor above the ceiling be drywall!

Thanks. I ask because there is not sepcific mention on "1/2 drywall on the garage side" (like there is in the first sentence) or "on both sides". It only says that the wall must be "protected" by the 1/2" drywall. Can it be "proteced" if the drywall is only on the garage side?

I don't understand the comment about the floor above the ceiling being drywall.

The dry wall needs to be on the garage side. If a car/can of gas/paint, etc catches on fire, you want all the extra time you can get to clear the house and put the fire out before it spreads.

If the drywall was just put on the basement side, it would leave the studs open to the flame, so it must be on the garage side of all the studs/joists.

Not to speak for the Bus Driver, but I think the point he is making you were not clear about is: When you put the drywall on the ceiling there is no requirment to put another layer on the top of the joists also, so similarly once you drywall the garage walls there is no requirement to do the other side also.

PS..If it were my house, I would put the 5/8ths fire code on both the ceiling and walls of the garage side.

Best Wishes from another SC resident!

Thanks peterbog!

I am just surprised that drywall is not required on BOTH sides.

I understand now about Bus Driver's comment. In our case, the ceiling will have drywall on the bottom and hardwood flooring on the top.

Where in SC are you?

There generally needs to be a fire rating (typically expressed in time) between the garage and living space. If you've got rooms over the garage you need it (and no penetrations please).

You'll probably have to bow to whatever local convention for achieving the fire rating. Some will count the interior dry wall (if present), some want the finished surface in the garage itself to meet it. 5/8", double 1/2, type x, are all various ways to acieve the rating.

The issue of fire-resistance in single-family dwellings is not very clear in most residential building codes. There is rarely a section on fire-resistance or even a definition of the term.

Fire-resistance ratings of building separation assemblies are determined by lab testing under ASTM E119 which only tests walls with enclosing materials on each side because the assembly rating represents the time it takes for the surface of the non-fire side of the test wall to reach a certain temperature. Don't confuse such ratings with fire-resistance equivalencies or flame-spread ratings for individual materials.

The typical residential building code requirement for 1/2" GWB on the garage side is not intended to achieve an assembly fire rating but simply to prevent a garage from being open to a habitable space or separated from it only by a combustible material. The wall does not actually carry a fire-resistance rating; its more similar to a smoke-partition as described in the commercial building code. The wall might be assumed to have a 20-minute fire-rating equivalency but there is no test or consensus standard that I know of that would verify that assumption.

The definition of Type X drywall is drywall that will achieve a 1-hour fire resistance rating when placed on both sides of wood or steel studs and tested under ASTM E119. Type C drywall has even greater fire-resistance so it can be substituted for Type X sometimes in a thinner layer. When it is placed on the bottom of typical framing with a typical subfloor and underlayment (or finished flooring) above it, it should achieve a true 1-hour floor assembly rating with a 5/8" type X or ½" type C ceiling but the residential codes usually only call out the former so you are probably stuck with 5/8" fire-resistant drywall even if it is Type C.

Pay close attention to opening protection requirements. Most residential codes only require a solid-core door in an unrated (combustible) frame without an automatic closer or UL approved hardware, although a true fire-resistance rated door assembly would be required to have those features.

Most codes also allow the use of a "20-minute rated door" without the above mentioned features but some building officials confuse this requirement with an opening protection assembly rating and require those features.

To make matters more confusing, some municipalities (often through the fire department) enforce the NFPA 101 Life Safety Code which, as I recall, requires a 1-hr rated door (even though it doesnÂt have a rated frame, a closer or UL approved hardware). It seems pointless to me to have a 1-hr door in a combustible frame in an unrated wall (or 20-minute smoke partition) but there it is. The thing to watch for under NFPA 101 is if the building official thinks the door is part of a true fire-rated wall assembly since that would require another layer of 5/8" type X drywall on the house side and all of the door features mentioned above. That has only happened to me once.

ItÂs easier to just ask the building official these questions and because they can sometimes resent having to defend interpretations of poorly written code sections, it is best to do whatever the official tells you to do without comment or discussion.