Soundproofing Walls?
Hi, We just moved to a masonry rowhouse and can hear everything from our adjoining neighbors home, from doors opening and closing to conversations. Wondering what our options are in terms of soundproofing–we have lovely details on some of the plaster walls that I am loathe to cover up with drywall if that is an…
Hi,
We just moved to a masonry rowhouse and can hear everything from our adjoining neighbors home, from doors opening and closing to conversations. Wondering what our options are in terms of soundproofing–we have lovely details on some of the plaster walls that I am loathe to cover up with drywall if that is an option. I’m looking for the most budget-friendly yet effective suggestions but really don’t know much about what options are out there. Would appreciate any solutions folks can recommend.
Thank you
^ it doesn’t rule out airborne noise when, as is very common, spaces are cut into the masonry firewall for outlets, etc. Then you do have gaps. Foam gaskets helped significantly in my very similar situation.
If it’s a circa 1900 rowhouse there’s almost certainly a masonry firewall between the homes, which all but rules out airborne noise transmission through gaps in the seal. Things like sealing up outlet boxes and baseboards won’t do much to fix that. Those treatments are mostly intended for shared interior walls and to reduce air infiltration from leaky exterior walls.
A wall acts like both a microphone and speaker diaphragm. That’s why you can hear a conversation in the next room more clearly by putting your ear against the wall. That’s structurally borne transmission and the same thing probably applies in this case in a “leg bone connected to the thigh bone…” fashion. The neighbor’s walls and floor are attached to joists and studs which couple to the sill beam, which may be coupled to the author’s floor joists. There’s the mechanical path for sound which then resonates his walls and floor.
I have the same sill beam situation at my house and it isn’t just a path for sound but for a termite invasion several years ago. They attacked my neighbor’s floor joists, ate into the sill beam, then traveled down my first floor joists and then down the basement stair stringers.
For nonstructural fixes, that wall behind the couch might be a good location for bookcases loaded with books. Or fabric wall-hangings. Either would help absorb the noise coming through the wall. We don’t have issues with the side neighbors but the sounds in our house fly up and down the stairs and through the floorboards. A velvet drape covering a door at the bottom of the steps really helped muffle our noise for our downstairs tenants. Also, our noise problems were lessened when both we and the tenants got rugs on the floors. Sorry about your issue–it sounds very annoying and I hope you find an easy fix.
Brucef is right. I always say (in my layperson’s opinion) that Brooklyn brownstones are more like tall apartments not separate houses. In our house and neighbor’s houses the sound from tv and stereo travels right through walls like noise through an interior wall not exterior wall. We don’t have a problem with voices traveling unless somebody with a deep voice is talking loudly and we never hear doors closing or quieter sounds like that. We’ll hear stairs creaking sometimes. So it seems like the OP’s house walls have some gaps letting noise in between his/hers and the other house as somebody said.
OP is hearing conversations and doors, not footsteps, so sounds like the floor joists are not the (primary) issue.
I wouldn’t at all say there’s no effective aftermarket treatment.
What brucef said. In these older rowhouses it wasn’t uncommon for the floor joists of two adjoining homes to rest on the same sill. Presto: a mechanical path for structurally born noise from their floor to your floor and partition wall. Sad to say that there’s really no effective aftermarket treatment for something like this other than quieter, new neighbors.
Cut down the plaster elements, put green glue (new product) underneath, and then remount the elements and patch the plaster cracks.
dane
http://www.soundproofingcompany.com/solutions/soundproofing_walls/
Various options listed in this article as well as the relative perfomance that can be expected