How does this soundproofing quote sound?

Hello,

I've just been quoted £950 to supply and install a 145mm thick soundproofing system on one of the walls in my terraced house, by a soundproofing specialist. The wall is approx 13 square metres.

This involves packing under the floor at the wall with soundproofing, creating a stud wall with soundproof mat, resilient bars, and two layers of heavyweight sound blocking plasterboard which will be sound sealed, taped and filled but not skimmed. It also involves the removal, trimming and re-fitting of things like skirting, picture and dado rails.

Looking up the materials myself I'm coming in the region of £500-£700. So, labour seems quite steep, but I'm not sure what the going rate for such a thing would be.

How does this sound to you? So far it's the cheapest and most in-depth solution I've been given from 3 companies, but I am open to opinions.

Soundproofing is usually pretty ineffective. What sort of noise is it you are trying to get rid of?

Mainly barking dogs and general speech / tv noise. At the moment I have little choice as I cannot afford to move, and the party wall is only 1 brick thick with no air gap. I can hear neighbour's conversations word for word.

So it seems experiences have been ranging from £2000 for a wall, to "do it yourself for 200 quid". This leaves me feeling it's a case of 'pay what you think it's worth' and nobody seems to know what the labour rate should really be? Of course a plasterer could do it, but how much would they know about dangers like shorting the insulation with screws or making sure every cavity is sealed?

I was quoted a 75-80% reduction in airborne noise. Not sure how accurate that would be, but if true, would make my life a lot happier.

Seems like a lot of work for not very much money when you take off the materials from the quote.

What sort of guarantee is being offered?

Get them to do pre- and post-installation sound tests to prove it's worked...and I don't mean you having to pay for them!

Just to add, we had 2 intermediate floors soundproofed in our 3 flat conversion a few years back. Each floor comprising dense chipboard with rubber backing, joists stuffed with dense rockwool, resilient bars and 2 layers of accoustic plasterboard cost around £5.5k. All with a guarantee and sound test for the building inspector. It passed!

Silly money for a diy job.

It is a tough one.

For me, the main value in a job like sound-proofing (obviously) is the overall effect. Anything less than say 90% reduction and you are going to go bananas.

I would imagine that as you strive to get nearer to 100% the cost of the sound-proofing goes up exponentially.

This is because the most determined of noises are the bassy sounds and these are the most difficult to suppress.

The other thing to consider of course is whether any of these guys know what they are doing and more importantly, the standard of quality in their work. You will not get good sound-proofing with sloppy work.

What are you going to do with sound that is already in the fabric of the building? I'm sure you've seen the pipe tapping scenes in Papillon.

joe-90 said:

What are you going to do with sound that is already in the fabric of the building? I'm sure you've seen the pipe tapping scenes in Papillon.

Click to expand...

".....knock three times on the ceiling if you want me.....twice on the pipe, if the answer is no'ohoh....."

Knock Knock Knock.


High heals please.

I paid £1500 for a soundproof stud wall as u described on a 5m long wall. Made little difference, can still hear the neighbours baby. I would never bother again, total waste of money. We're moving out of London and buying a detached place, expensive solution but it will work.

If the materials are £5-700, the labour seems reasonable. The question should be 'will it work'?

The short answer is probably 'no'.

Sound is like water - it will find its way in by some other route. Flanking walls are the weakness when people insulate party walls.

There is no simple answer to retrofitting 'sound insulation', and firms should not go around convincing people that they can solve sound penetration problems.

tony1851 said:

If the materials are £5-700, the labour seems reasonable. The question should be 'will it work'?

The short answer is probably 'no'.

Sound is like water - it will find its way in by some other route. Flanking walls are the weakness when people insulate party walls.

There is no simple answer to retrofitting 'sound insulation', and firms should not go around convincing people that they can solve sound penetration problems.

Click to expand...

Fully agree with this, the best you can hope for is a slight reduction, don't waste your money is my advice

I know this thread is pretty old, but I imagine people search this topic pretty often, so I thought I'd post my experience with soundproofing from purely a DIY scenario.

We had a problem with noise coming through a party wall, there was no way I was going to pay huge prices for something I knew wouldn't fully resolve the issue.

As an ex-floor layer I knew that in acoustic requirements we used a very heavy crumb rubber underlay, So I thought I would give it a go on the wall..

I bonded 10mm System10 Crumb underlay to the wall, taped joints and sealed edges etc. and to be honest even that alone was better as we could hear everything from a cough to the TV before. I went for System10 purely for its weight. (and I had a roll). its dam heavy and you need mass to absorb sound.. there are other acoustic underlays but they are usually measured for impact noise... but they could be worth trying.. maybe, a thinner crumb heavy underlay and a PU foam or felt mix, I guess then you would absorb different frequencies... all are considerably cheaper than the acoustic matting you can buy.

I then stuck (no mechanical fixings) 2 layers of db sound-check plasterboard over the top staggering the joints, propping it slightly off the floor and run up into the above ceiling void/floor space as the System10 was.

Then I sealed the small gap round the edge with acoustic mastic and decorated as normal.

Now it wasn't perfect but it was a LOT better than it was with no insulation - you could hold a conversation without the neighbours hearing it and it stopped the noise of their TV as prior to that we could pretty much make out what channel they were watching!

Like I said, it didn't completely stop the noise but this was done very cheaply with off the shelf DIY products.

We ended up moving to a different house as the family expanded and in the loft conversion I'm currently doing I've just done exactly the same thing... really this time to help the neighbours as we have 2 noisy boys!

Thanks for that Geeba. That gives me good ideas for doing our loft, which is currently just a storage attic so it doesn't need to be pretty or 100% efficient, just cheap!

I probably should have updated this thread with my own experience since I started it.

I went with the original quote for the soundproofing in the end. I was really happy with the guys that did it, who were in and out quickly and left no mess. The finish, which was just taped and filled, actually looked neat enough so we just painted over it and it looks fine. They managed to keep the depth of the wall just within our nice ceiling plasterwork.

As for the efficiency, it's definitely made a big difference. When people are using the room directly through the wall, we don't hear a thing. It's not a 100% noise killer, but it has made the room much more livable. Worth every penny so far.

There IS sound transfer through the structure which isn't soundproofed such as adjacent walls, but we expected that. Also, it does nothing for impact noise, but that isn't our problem so, again, we're happy with that.

We are now contemplating doing the upstairs as we now notice how bad it is by comparison. We can hear conversations as if they were in the same room, and situation with two noisy dogs is just ridiculous.

It doesn't help that the attic has so many holes in the party wall that you can see out their velux window. Some holes you can pass a hand through.

So, all in all I'd recommend it, providing you know its limitations.