Soundproofing a room - help

[widowmaker]

I am sure many of you have experienced this or are experiencing it now.

Noise from neighbours, cars, and also to a lesser extent family. What with speakers getting louder, sound bars etc.

Any experience of making a room a little better soundproofed. I have spoken to neighbours, which will be on ongoing I'm sure.

I have got supplies of plasterboard, wood, etc.

 

[Joe_Rides]

Depends how much space you can stand to lose really, are you just taking about the Party wall between you and the neighbours? Or the full walls / ceiling?

If it's just the Party wall, and you don't want to lose a lot of space, you could consider 1 x layer of Soundbloc plasterboard, fixed on a 'top hat' type stud. Potentially with some thin foam in between. You'd lose about an inch off the room.

This would work better than dot & dabbing the plasterboard on as the gap is key to sound transfer.

If you can lose more room, add more Soundbloc boards!

 

[widowmaker]

Thanks for that.

I was going to start with the party wall, I have some 10 cm thick rockwool sound insulation foam, I was thinking some sort of stud wall/batton frame with soundblock plasterboard. Then move the floor to ceiling wardrobes to that wall.

I was interested in people's real world experience as there appears to be lots of myths surrounding how and if it can be done.

I'll replace the wooden floor with underlay and carpet when the works done.

 

[Joe_Rides]

I'm sure that would make a pretty big difference!

I've got full height wardrobes against the Party wall in our bedroom (but no other soundproofing) and they make a big difference.

At work we get asked to do a lot of interview type rooms, of differing db ratings depending on how private they need to be. But typically the walls are 'jumbo' (90mm?) metal stud, with rockwool insulation and 2 layers of soundbloc board either side. Usually this needs to be tight to the soffit of the floor above to avoid transfer through a ceiling void.

 

[legrandefromage]

One time, at band camp, durin' the woar...

We had a flat in a two storey victorian town house, the neighbours below rented theirs and the tenants would change every so often, all managed by an indifferent lettings agency

One couple were very noisy, the lady liked to get drunk and get loud at silly times of the night into the early morning often shouting up at us 'wait until they get a load of this!' - the 'this' was a very cheap and nasty midi system, you know the sort, cheap plastic with 'orrible tinny speakers.

Anyway

Me being me and having access to all sorts of decent audio equipment, I left a large subwoofer on all weekend. It had a duvet on top and was set so it was very low frequencies but also very loud.

When we came back after 3 days, the neighbours were very nice and very apologetic and we no longer had any issues with them.

So there.

 

[widowmaker]

I like your style, but I have a few options before I take it up to DEFCON 1, and I do have a hi-fi that could compete easily with thiers

 

[My_Teenage_Self]

you need Mass loaded Vinyl. total covering on the wall in question, covered in the plasterboard mentioned above.

 

[widowmaker]

Depends how much space you can stand to lose really, are you just taking about the Party wall between you and the neighbours? Or the full walls / ceiling?

If it's just the Party wall, and you don't want to lose a lot of space, you could consider 1 x layer of Soundbloc plasterboard, fixed on a 'top hat' type stud. Potentially with some thin foam in between. You'd lose about an inch off the room.

This would work better than dot & dabbing the plasterboard on as the gap is key to sound transfer.

If you can lose more room, add more Soundbloc boards!

What'a a top hat type of stud ?

 

[Joe_Rides]

 

[Joe_Rides]

You'd be ok with timber studs, especially if you are putting 100mm insulation in!