Soundproof party wall and fitted wardrobe.

Hi, we live in a terraced house and our neighbours are students and our 4 bedrooms share the party wall. I'm not sure if single brick or double but in the evening and night time noise carries. Mostly they aren't a bad bunch and don't make excessive noise - but it is the everyday noise like late night chatting/giggling, TV noise or music - that stops us going to sleep or wakes us up after they've had a night out at the pub or clubbing. If we complain and they move to a different room we still hear it from our bedroom (it's like the walls are cardboard).

There are 4 rooms and we don't have much money so I want to try and see how likely it is we can drastically reduce the noise. If not we'll look to move.

When we gutted the house I took down all the ceilings so a 100yrs worth of dust was cleared out which i guess would act as a sound barrier. So i will lift the floors and put in some insulation (that will be a pain in itself - i put thin ply down over the floorboards screwing it down at 6 inch intervals).

For the party wall in the two main rooms (about 16 sq m) I was thinking we could afford to loose a few inches. I was thinking of building a stud wall (each room has 2 alcoves and chimney breast), packing it with rockwool and lining with soundbloc. Is this the best solution to block sound? Would there be an issue with ventilation/condensation?

Then in front of it, spanning the whole wall from floor to ceiling I was going to build a built in wardrobe. The two alcoves would have the hanging space and some storage above, and in front of the chimney breast have some shelves for books etc with sliding doors in front.

I'm not sure if this is overkill - could I get away with just using green glue and plasterboard on the party wall, or maybe a built in wardrobe on it's own would do the trick?

Also, there is a solid brick wall running 90 degrees to the party wall that separates our two main bedrooms - what is the best way to prevent flanking noise come through this?

Any advice would be greatly received

Your walls are acting like drum skins, transmitting the noise by vibration into your rooms.

Think of the problem like noise from outside, one sheet of glass and the noise is lessened, have double glazing (especially with two different thicknesses of glass) and different wavelengths are deadened. Notice how noisy it is, when you open your front door.

With double glazing having a four inch gap between the sheets of glass stops most noise, double to eight inches =better, 12 inch gap hardly any noise at all. Think of the windows at Gatwick airport, aircraft revving up just outside; not a sound.

Fixing a piece of plywood one inch away from the alcove wall will make a difference.

cheers for the reply, so really a stud wall, unattached to the party wall and a wardrobe and it will likely make a good difference.

And for the flanking noise I would just have to hope for the best or is there any method to stop the vibrations just coming along that wall?

Cheers

Vibration doesn't work like that. Again think of a drum, noise doesn't come out of the solid sides, only the skin vibrates.