Soundproofing a party wall

Pocket10s · 17 May 2021 at 09:00

Hi all,

My home office is next to my neighbours landing/ bathroom. Unfortunately I can hear taps running/ them talking to each other/ cupboards closing and them running up and down stairs.

Now, I've done some research and I'm not out to eliminate the sound completely as that seems somewhat impossible - more I want to reduce it as much as I can. The things that annoy me the most is the fact I can hear them talking and that therefore they can hear me. I take a lot of work calls in my office.

I have space to give up, the room is a generous size so thats okay.

Has anyone undertaken this? Did it work? I'm seeing a lot of mixed reviews online. One company quoted me 1.2K to fit the fake wall (but not finish any of the skirting or coving). The wall is 3.3M by 2.5M high.

Is this something I can undertake? I do consider myself quite handy.

Love to hear any opinions. Thank you.

Freakbro · 17 May 2021 at 09:10

My partner went to see a friends Nursery at the w/e, which is a repurposed police station and one of the rooms, now being used for parent meetings, was soundproofed with some sort felt like wallpaper and she said it was amazing, it completely isolated the room.

I was going to Google it anyway for interest sake but seeing this thread reminded me.

This is the first thing I found https://www.clearsoundacoustics.co....MIw9CN8Z_Q8AIVCIjVCh1sgAgYEAAYASAAEgJYs_D_BwE

If it does work in your situation it could be cheaper/less intrusive than a fake wall

rangor gubbins · 17 May 2021 at 10:10

sound dampening is definitely doable using some acoustic absorbing materials. Cavity walls filled with rockwool type stuff, vibration absorbent mats, etc. But if one room is very quiet and adjacent room very noisy you'll still be able to hear the neighbours talking next door.

You could try some of those active noise cancellation devices? I've no idea how well they work for a room but perhaps worth a shot?

Steampunk · 17 May 2021 at 14:19

Pocket10s said:
Hi all,

Is this something I can undertake? I do consider myself quite handy.

Love to hear any opinions. Thank you.

If you can take off and replace skirting, do painting/wallpapering, then there are modern DIY solutions within your abilities that will probably cost about half that price, and not lose too much space off the room (30-50mm) as they are not building a floating wall, but attaching to the existing wall. The following sites will help you decide what products might be suitable for you, and show you what you can expect in terms of effectiveness. Most noiseproofing will still have issues with impact, flanking, and low frequency noise, because you still share walls, but they are pretty good for air noise, which is what seems to be the problem for you.

https://soundproofingstore.uk/
https://www.soundstop.co.uk/
https://www.noisestopsystems.co.uk/shop/wall-soundproofing/

ik9000 · 17 May 2021 at 18:27

I am currently looking in to a similar problem with a party wall but SFAIK there is only so far you can go. Flanking sound will always win, so if two properties are joined some transfer is inevitable.

The best option is to decouple, but this is nigh-on impossible to retrofit short of making a new floating box inside your room (which just isn't practical)

So the approach SFAIK is:
1) add mass
2) add resilient layers to damp the worst offending frequencies
3) add more mass over those
4) add sound absorption to the surfaces, so soft furnishings, etc.

The current design, if I understand it correctly seems to be:
removing all the plaster,
getting the party wall properly filled and pointed,
dodgy movement joints raked-out and resealed / bonded,
removing all sockets on the party wall and filling with drypack, replastering,
then lining with dense acoustic roll,
then lining with acoustic board on resilient fixings.

It's not cheap and will loose them approx 50-75mm along the wall all in, but will hopefully help reduce the noise coming through.

Also look into whether the wall cavities run across the party wall line. These days I think they should be fire-stopped at the junction, but older ones aren't always. It can be worth getting those sealed and filled too to reduce stuff coming across that way. No point beefing up the party wall if the main issue is transfer via the facades.

m4rkw7 · 19 May 2021 at 13:32

You can stud the wall out with 3x2 timber then line it with insulation and plasterboard over, refit skirt, skim coat, paint if there's any sockets they will need spurring from existing sockets then re-mounting on the new wall.
Depends how handy you are it's not an amazingly hard job if you've got the tools.

nst68 · 19 May 2021 at 14:17

This video might help

Relentless81 · 19 May 2021 at 14:17

Pocket10s said:
Hi all,

My home office is next to my neighbours landing/ bathroom. Unfortunately I can hear taps running/ them talking to each other/ cupboards closing and them running up and down stairs.

Now, I've done some research and I'm not out to eliminate the sound completely as that seems somewhat impossible - more I want to reduce it as much as I can. The things that annoy me the most is the fact I can hear them talking and that therefore they can hear me. I take a lot of work calls in my office.

I have space to give up, the room is a generous size so thats okay.

Has anyone undertaken this? Did it work? I'm seeing a lot of mixed reviews online. One company quoted me 1.2K to fit the fake wall (but not finish any of the skirting or coving). The wall is 3.3M by 2.5M high.

Is this something I can undertake? I do consider myself quite handy.

Love to hear any opinions. Thank you.

For the kind of noise you describe I probably wouldn't bother. I spent 4.5K on sound proofing both adjoining large bedrooms a few months ago and although it has made a difference and has cut out voices, screaming and shouting pretty much completely it hasn't made a huge difference to impact noise which is what travels through the framework of the house

If you said it was airborne noise such as music, tv, talking, arguing etc then I would say go for it and I would do it again for that kind of noise, but impact noise, it will muffle it and it will be slightly better but it wont get rid of it.

Thats with a 120MM thick false wall across the first floor of the party wall, using the sound deadening material you see in the video above, one layer of sound proof boarding, a layer of techsound mat on top of that, another layer of sound proof plaster board and then plaster so four layers of sound deadening material.

When I did all my research some of the DIY and plaster board jobs can actually make it worse so I would be careful with that