Sound Insulation Experience?
Any homeowner has any experience with a successful sound insulation? I would like to hear from people who had sound problem from either the next door neighbors or the neighbors from upstairs or downstairs and have installed sound insulation and are happy with the results. Please, share with us the solution that worked for you:…
Any homeowner has any experience with a successful sound insulation?
I would like to hear from people who had sound problem from either the next door neighbors or the neighbors from upstairs or downstairs and have installed sound insulation and are happy with the results. Please, share with us the solution that worked for you: material used…
sorry, I meant knew and know!
We gut renovated an 1850s 5 story house and created a fancy shmancy rental on the garden floor. Although the architect new damn well we were creating a rental, he neglected to really address the issue of footfall sound transference (the most annoying kind in my opinion. I discovered that most architects no nothing about sound, they just kinda guess. I did extensive research and found a true sound engineer who sells a product that is used all over Europe. It is made from recycled car tires and is incredibly dense and heavy – and pretty darn expensive, too. I actually took up my brand new Carlisle floors, which could not be salvaged, and deinstalled some kitchen cabinets, to use this product. It has a special acoustical glue that you use. Then I bought and installed a new floor. We also filled up every gap we could find. Guess what? It worked. I can’t say the reduction is 100%, because I did not isolate all the beams with clips (the house is 150 years old and it is not like new construction), but we did achieve 85-90%. I recommend you research and consider using the same product. I lost 1/2- 3/4 of an inch, but it was well worth it.
Here is the URL http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com. I worked with a guy named Ted who was very, very helpful.
Our problem was our next door neighbors. Only a one layer brick wall separated our house from their house. We could hear every noise, including when someone went up or down the stairs. We could also smell their cooking.
The problem was solved with sound insulation. It included applying a sealing layer to the common wall to prevent odors from passing through and then moving our walls in, and filling the new void with sound insulation.
Our 20′ wide home was reduced to 18.5′, but we gained a quiet home, with a lot of nice custom storage niches in our bedrooms, and natural runs for wiring and eventually high pressure air conditioning.
That should have been “19th century”.
I wrote a comment to your previous post, and just wanted to clarify: our situation appears to be very similar if not identical to yours: two identical 18th century Brooklyn row houses, a party wall made of two (I think) layers of brick, and plaster applied directly on the brick in both houses. In one room in our house the plaster had been removed to expose the brick, and the problem was worse. We could not afford to hire a sound insulation consultant, so we read about noise insulation, and with our very basic understanding we decided to try the solution I described. It worked very well for us. The cost was reasonable as we this ourselves.