Considering sound proofing walls, any experiences/thoughts?

[Apostle]

I am considering sound proofing the party wall in our basement, which was a garage before being converted into a regular room.

The walls have all be done with wooden frames and plasterboard on top, so I guess it would be best to remove plasterboard, and put in some "dense fibre wool" in the gaps, then back on with plasterboard and some more sound proof material, as found on this site - http://www.noisestopsystems.co.uk/walls_sound_proofing.htm

One obstacle though, is a cupboard which house the gas and electric metres. When I open these doors, it is easy to hear next doors radio etc, so the doors give some sound proofing, but I'd obviously like to improve this. Also, slightly strangley, I can hear the neighbours chairs move across the floor in the morning evening, assume it's their dining table. How is this noise traveling into my home?! Through the walls, or joists?! I don't know, if I can hear that, then the walls must be virtually paper thin?

One other thing to note is that the joists run into the party wall! From my research on the net I have found this to be rather poor design, as I can hear (as I'm sure my neighbours can too) people walking up the stairs and across the floors, it's very uncomfortable situation.

Tips and advice greatly appreciated.

 

[danlightbulb]

We had the same problem in a previous house.

The key is to add as much mass to the wall as possible. So use the thickest plasterboard, maybe 2 layers. If you can use the solid slab insluation then I believe thats better too.

Its a very interesting point about the floor joists. In the house I had the floor joists ran into the party wall, but in my latest house they don't and its much quieter. I'd never thought about that before. Can you put fibre wool underneith the floorboards?

 

[Apostle]

Yes Dan, it's something I never thought of either, but whenever I next move house it'll be one of the first things I check.

Yep, I could put fibrewool, or I think it's called rock wool, between the joists, and slabs of sound proof material on the walls. Debatable how much that will change this vibratiopn from the joists into the wall, but could help the other problems.

Really I wanted to know if anyone had used a company similar to the one I posted a link to above, and what the results were like? I could spend a fair bit of money on this, and really don't want to if I'm not going to be happy with it.

Thanks.

 

[deefadog]

If you pop over to the avforums (google it) There is a section on people that have built there own cinemas, lots of info there on sound proofing!

Hope that helps

 

[ALLANBll68]

I am hoping to line out my concrete garage in spring next year, the building will installed in July and i am hoping somebody can give me the best advice to do this.

It has concrete panels and a cement roof, any advise would be appreciated, i already have electrics in there.

Regards

Allan