soundproofing party wall on stairs

[silver33]

Hi all my first post so go steady lol.
I am well fed up of the neighbours noise from kids running on the floorboards and tv and music being played. I can also hear conversations too.

I want to solve this problem with some soundproofing.

I realise I will lose some space from the wall.

I would like to know if using 2 x 1 battens, filled with rockwool then resilient bars on top then soundbloc plasterboard added will make any difference?

Realistically I'd like to just put the res bar to the wall direct and hang the plasterboard from that to save space. Would that be of any use if say I filled the gap with roackwool?

Do any of these soundbloc boards/maxiboards work?

Any help or advice would be most welcome.

 

[joe-90]

Nobody has ever come back and told us they have soundproofed their house successfully. I don't think its possible.

 

[silver33]

Thanks.

But what I am proposing would have some effect surely?

 

[joe-90]

It has some effect but not as much as you hope it will. The problem is that you start to listen for the noise and it is pretty much impossible to stop it completely (or anywhere near).

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

There are numerous previous threads in the Building Section, have a trawl through and have a read of them. If possible a separate partition should be constructed away from your existing one eg //www.diynot.com/forums/general-diy/sound-proofing-party-wall-how-much-am-i-looking-at.300447/

Joe is right though, there are numerous threads but despite receiving allsorts of advice nobody can ever be bothered to say whether their chosen method was worth it or not.

 

[silver33]

thanks again.

I just wanted to know if resillient bars fixed directly to the walls then plasterboard on top would get rid of some of the noise.

As its a wall that the stairs are right up against I can't build anything away from it.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

They will be better than building directly off he wall but as to how much better that is down to the individual.

 

[PawsOfEvil]

For resilient bars to work on a wall they need to be fitted to 75mm battens that are themselves lined from the wall by 5mm thick neoprene. Then you infill with rockwool and double plasterboard line the wall - you should stagger the joints to reduce noise further. You end up loosing about 100mm from the wall.

I had a similar problem after installing a home cinema sound system, my wife was complaining it was too loud upstairs and I was sick of hearing her stomping around in the middle of a movie!

I looked at a lot of different systems and decided in the end just to use a double plasterboard layer and rockwool direct to the joists. It made an appreciable difference for me and wasn't very expensive. All the other lining systems I looked at seemed to be a bit quirky. Resilient bars reckon to cause a reduction in noise by about 50% but it is all subjective. Transient noises like shouting, kids jumping on floorboards and dropping stuff just wont be effected as much as you might hope. General noise levels do fall though.

Whatever you decide make sure you fit them to the manufacturers guidelines. You can get an iPhone app that takes a decibel reading - do that before and after installation and if it does bugger all and you have fitted it correctly you can complain to the manufacturer, you might be able to get your money back.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Messing around with a dB reader is a complete waste of time especially some rubbish app one. Its real effects that count.

And how do you translate a sound reduction of 50% into anything that means anything!

Getting your money back on the back of doing some amateur before and after dB checks with your Gayphone on your finished construction!

 

[Nige F]

Getting your money back on the back of doing some amateur before and after dB checks with your Gayphone on your finished construction!

And dB are logarithmic so you`d need a scientific phone