HELP! sound insulation to stop noise through party wall

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Durham
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We live in a semi-detached house which has been in our family for years. I inherited it 2 years ago & we moved back"home". Our next door neighbours are elderly & slightly deaf & also watch all the soaps at high volume on their bedroom tele after midnight up to around 2.30am. Nice people other than stopping us sleeping & they've lived next door for years. Mum & Dad put up with their telly audio drifting through the party wall in the bedroom for years. BUT we've had enough as have to get up quite early for work. We are having a range of wardrobes fitted (not freestanding) put along the entire length of the party wall this coming Saturday. (Joiner doing the work). We've been advised to get some of the square insulation panels which are used to put on floor boards before laying laminate flooring & adhere these onto the stripped bare plaster wall (have been told that this will deaden the noise) before the joiner arrives to fit in the new wardrobes. Can anyone tell us if there is any reason why we shouldn't do this? Will it help achieve a dulling/deadening of the tele noise. And if so what type of adhesive should we use. All advice much appreciated - many thanks.
 
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You have my sympathies. But at least elderly hard-of-hearing people have an excuse; young antisocial people making themselves deaf (and runing other people's lives) don't have any.

There's quite a bit a general advice on this forum on the subject. You have to seal any passages for air transmission (such as poor mortar joints in the party wall between the ground and first floor) then isolate the internal surfaces of the affected rooms from the walls which are transmitting sound by vibration.

Don't forget, too, the sound which may be coming in through your windows from next door.
 
it is also useful to take up the floorboards against the party wall and (1) fill in cracks in mortar or holes in the wall (this is quite usual where it is not plastered and is not on show) and (2) pack dense mineral wool bats in the space between the joists. it will be useful to do this in the loft, too, as it will be a weak spot allowing sound through.
 
More sympathy from me too! Again, be grateful that your neighbours are not inconsiderate scum playing loud boom boom music and partying all night. We were forced to move house when violent drug dealers moved in next door with loud music, bonfires, Police raids, three dogs barking and whining all night, rubbish over the wall and so on. What we dscovered from that episode is the importance of good neighbours, so we do our best to keep on excellent terms now with all neighbours, not just on both sides.

My approach would be to pop round with a nice home-baked sponge cake and ask them if they would mind turning the sound down and using the subtitles after 10.30. I'm sure being elderly they will be well-mannered folk keen to get along with you.

Sound proofing will help reduce the noise but it will never stop it, however combined with a reduction in volume you might be able to get some sleep. We did try getting bespoke ear plugs made by a local hearing-aid specialist but being a fairly hard plastic they were uncomfortable when you laid on your side.

Good luck!
 
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I'm sorting a similar project at the moment.
Many people think that sound can be treated in the same way as heat. IT CAN'T! Polystyrene and rigid foams do little to stop noise. Expanding foams can help by blocking up holes but over a large area the still transmit noise. Making a surface airtight stops sound leakage through the surface but the only thing with sound transmission is to stop the sound hitting the surface, or stop the sound radiating by covering with a resiliently mounted secondary surface.
My solution is to dry line the walls as they are the biggest area and easiest to tackle, You could dry line straight onto good plaster with 12mm plasterboard (there's nothing better than mass to stop sound). I'm going a step further by dry lining onto 50mm battens. The void will be filled with a semi rigid batt of Rockwool (available from Wikes DIY or many builder's merchants). The adhesive I'm going to use is Everbuild's Everflex AC95 (which sets as a resilient interface as well as an adhesive) rather than the usual rigid adhesive or Gripfill. (Available from Sitebox but remember to order the matching sealant gun. The cartridges are 900ml so a standard gun won't do)
I may need to fill voids where the joists enter the party wall, but putting glassfibre in the space between my floorboards and ceiling is a waste of time as the joists will carry the noise through. If your joists run parallel to the party wall then putting glassfibre into the space between the last joist and the wall may help. If you are replacing ceilings then is a good time to seal and introduce insulation, but in other cases it is a big job to open up and close ceiling or floor voids.
Eryl
 

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