Sound insulation between floor

[Chass3r]

I am converting a basement into living space. The ceiling between basement and existing living room is pre cast concrtete bison slabs. I am cross battening the ceiling with 40mm x 19mm timbers. Before I put on the cross battens is there anything I can do to help reduce noise from above. The noise is not excessive just footsteps and talking.

 

[Deluks]

Use deeper battens and put rockwool slabs up against the floor. 25mm, 30mm or 50mm. Go as thick as you can afford the loss of head height.

Then use soundblock plasterboard. Could also use resilient channel (aka resi bar) which dampens the plasterboard against noise transmission. Google it or search on here.

 

[ajrobb]

Agree with Deluks. Could go further/more expense:

• up to 100mm acoustic grade mineral wool
  2 layers of 12.5mm Soundbloc on resilient bar
  seal edges with acoustic sealer

For acoustics, it is the mass of the mineral wool that is important rather than its thickness. If you want to keep costs down, it is probably better to use 2 layers of ordinary plasterboard rather than a single layer of expensive Soundbloc.

The ceiling treatment should sort out the speech frequencies. It can be difficult to treat low frequency impact/footstep noise without treating the floor above. It is better to stop low frequency energy getting into the structure by using soft mats. Otherwise it shakes the whole structure and you get flanking transmission down the walls.

The mineral wool also keeps your heat in your flat.