Soundproofing Idea

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Essex
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Hi there

I must have spent days over the last few weeks researching the options to soundproof a party wall in a semi detatched house.

I understand the Principle is mass and an air gap , and that i should build a decoupled stud wall , insulate and soundboard.

I cant afford to loose that much space and the proprietry methods are just too expensive.

I do not have a major problem with Sound the current neighbour does not play loud music does not have wild parties, however I hear doors closing ( she doesnt seem to use a handle ) , and when there are visitors can hear voices. Just the general sound of living ! .

I am in the middle of redecorating the living room, and decided to tackle this as part of the work.

It is a late 30's brick built house, single brick , with a gap between the walls.

My plan is first to put high density insulation against the party wall under the floor. to help prevent sound travelling from under floors.

I am also going to hang insulation under my floor , but this is more to improve the thermal insulation of the room. , + I will be laying a soundproof underlay between the floorboards and the new oak flooring.

For the walls I have considered , the 25-30mm high density insulation , wood battened to the wall and 2 layers of soundboard.

Wickes sell high density insulation which says you do not need to stud / batten the wall, but i really cant see how if this is just glued to the wall it will hold up 2 layers of soundboard ! .. i asked in wickes but they didnt have a clue

So then i went off the idea of the high density insulation and had a thought :

Would it make sense to glue that green laminate floor underlay which is about 3mm to the wall, and glue the soundboard to that ? i could stick another layer of underlay inbetwen the soundboard as well. I know this would not be the best solution, but i am thinking that it would help decouple the masonry from the Soundboard, and have experience how good that stuff is in terms of blocking sound. and the big plus for me is i would only loose about an inch and qtr from the room, rather than 2+


Any advise is appreciated.
 
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I suspect you'll ought to use horizontal resilient bars on the vertical battens and seal the edges with acoustic sealant. The resilient bars add 10mm to the thickness and the vertical battens only need to be around 10mm thick or so to prevent screws through the plasterboard from touching the wall. It doesn't matter if you pinch the sound absorbing mineral wool behind the resilient bars. Two overlapped layers of SoundBloc or similar will give you the mass you need and support the vertical joins.
 
Have any chimney breasts been removed on the party wall either their side or yours?
 
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Have any chimney breasts been removed on the party wall either their side or yours?

Hi yes, on my side, not sure about the other , but the breast was removed all the way through both floors into the loft.

Does this effect it ? Would appreciate your advise.


I have today purchased the soundboard plasterboard, and some 12mm timber and will be looking into ajrobb's idea any getting hold of some resilient bar... although the it seems to be about 17mm deep from what i can find on the net.
 
Removing chimneys helps the sound insulation. It is difficult to insulate inside unused chimneys and nigh on impossible to insulate used chimneys.

If you plan to have fairly heavy items on the insulated wall, you might put vertical steel plates behind the plasterboard to take fixings. Something like board jointing plate might be adequate.
 
Removing chimneys helps the sound insulation. It is difficult to insulate inside unused chimneys and nigh on impossible to insulate used chimneys.

If you plan to have fairly heavy items on the insulated wall, you might put vertical steel plates behind the plasterboard to take fixings. Something like board jointing plate might be adequate.

Ok thanks, i thought you was going to say that i had made it worse by removing the chimney.

Nothing heavy planned, my decor is pretty minimal. maybe a couple of prints.

Just another thought, last year i did my kitchen which is also against the same party wall.

both as sound insulation but also to rectify a rough plastered wall, i lined it with 1 sheet of soundboard, however i just dot and dabbed it onto the existing masonry.

it might just be me, and i know she has been doing some moving around in her kitchen around too , but it does sometime seem a bit noisier, and when i tap the wall there is a hollow sound obviously from the gaps between the board and wall where there is no dot nor dab ! ...

Will probably leave it as i don't usually spend long in the kitchen and there is usually enough noise from ovens etc to mask and noise from next door, but would it be possible to fill the cavity a-la as they do with cavity wall insulation ? is there some kind of spray available to the diyer ?

Cheers everyone
 

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