Transfer of sound - flats vs houses

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

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Hi Everyone,

I currently live in a flat. Due to a new job, money, and a desire for more than one bedroom I now have it on the market and looking to buy a 2/3 bed house.

One of the minor annoyances I've had is hearing my neighbors below me (those next to me I never hear).

To those who have lived in both flats and houses, do houses generally offer better sound insulation against neighbors?

Cheers,
 
You're likely to have fewer adjoining neighbours, obviously, but crank up some bass and that sucker will travel through walls like they aren't there.

Don't pray for insulation, pray for quiet neighbours! I've suffered in terraced and semi detached alike.
 
Depends on the house, the terrace we just moved out of you could hear full conversations going on in the living room next to ours.
In our new semi detached place I'm yet to hear anything.
 
Mat said:
You're likely to have fewer adjoining neighbours, obviously, but crank up some bass and that sucker will travel through walls like they aren't there.

Don't pray for insulation, pray for quiet neighbours! I've suffered in terraced and semi detached alike.
Click to expand...

Well, there's only two floors in my block of flats and I occupy a corner flat. So I have only two neighbors - below and next to me :).

I'm tempted to stick with looking at semi detached houses to reduce the risk of noisey neighbors..
 
Having lived in both a flats (a block of four 2 tall, 2 wide) and a variety of houses (currently mid terrace) I can confirm that sound transfer is much less noticable in the houses.

When I lived in the flat I could hear my upstairs neighbours up to all manner of things nearly all the time.

However in my terrace house I can barely hear anything going on next door, the only exception being a dog barking and even that's very faint.
 
It depends on the construction of the house. I think mine is a plasterboard/100mm blockwork/gap/100mm blockwork/plaster board. To that extent, I certainly don't hear them walking up and down the stairs, vacuuming, watching TV, music or day to day talking. The only sound I hear is if they do DIY and start drilling or knocking nails into the wall.

However, they can hear my sub…at a volume which I considered to be general listening level, so they don't insulate well against low frequencies.
 
Raymond Lin said:
It depends on the construction of the house. I think mine is a plasterboard/100mm blockwork/gap/100mm blockwork/plaster board. To that extent, I certainly don't hear them walking up and down the stairs, vacuuming, watching TV, music or day to day talking. The only sound I hear is if they do DIY and start drilling or knocking nails into the wall.

However, they can hear my sub…at a volume which I considered to be general listening level, so they don't insulate well against low frequencies.
Click to expand...

Now, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to DIY and properties. Are they also known as studded walls? Do they differ than say, traditional brick walls? Ie i've seen some staggered terrace which looks like two layers of brick separating the houses. Is that better for noise softening?

Scurra said:
Having lived in both a flats (a block of four 2 tall, 2 wide) and a variety of houses (currently mid terrace) I can confirm that sound transfer is much less noticable in the houses.

When I lived in the flat I could hear my upstairs neighbours up to all manner of things nearly all the time.

However in my terrace house I can barely hear anything going on next door, the only exception being a dog barking and even that's very faint.
Click to expand...

Do you know what kind of walls you have? Fully insulated/brick/studded etc?
 
Most non-structural walls are made from 75mm stud with plasterboard either side. The stud are spaced 600mm apart and the gaps in between is just thin air. The wall between you and your neighbour will NOT be these as they don't really offer any fire protection so this kind of construction isn't what you need to concern about.

The party/party wall between the 2 houses will have a plasterboard on your side and his, plasterboard don't really stick on bare concrete blocks so a wooden stud is put up and the plasterboard is attached to that, with insulation in between.

There is no real way to properly insulate all frequencies of sound, the only and best way is density and distance. For the sound from my subwoofer to travel to my neighbour's living room. It has to go through the following

1 – internal wall in my living room

Into stairs/hall way

2 – party wall – plasterboard/blockwork x 2/plasterboard

Into their stairs/hall way

3 – internal wall in their living room

I thought that was enough to dampen the sound, and I didn't even buy the bigger sub ! There really nothing I could do to insulate sound on my end except turning it down or buying a detached house if I want to turn up the volume.
 
This pretty much explains all the types of sound transfer in residential and the solutions for each.

http://www.soundisolationstore.com/sound-isolation-solutions-for-floors-and-ceilings

I've lived in flats and houses and certainly a house is quieter as you have only two neighbours where as a flat potentially could be five direct back to pack party walls.

There's no real rule of thumb between age of house and the quietness it just depends on the construction type.

We are building apartments at the moment where the party wall build up is

15mm sound block board
15mm sound block board
70mm insulation in a
70mm c stud
chicken mesh
80mm gap
chicken mesh
70mm c stud
70mm insulation in a
15mm sound block board
15mm sound block board

Which is standard BG white book
 
Sound works strangely, and I don't think it's anything you can really predict without knowing a true breakdown of buildings. (Sound waves are ultimately quite simple)

In the last four years, I've lived in a semi detached, student accom as a flat, a terraced and flat above us, and another semi.

In the first semi, I can't hear anything from next door. It's an oldish house, and the walls are solid between the houses. The only time I hear them is if they're hanging something on that wall and drilling into it.

In the student flats. I could rarely hear those above or below me. I could hear the room next to me. The walls were like plasterboard, and I could hear people four rooms away because the noise would go out their door, down the corridor and through my door.

In the terrace with flats on top. I could hear the fridge in the kitchen above my room (different 'house') I couldn't hear the one in our kitchen below my room (same house). I could hear the person next to me

In the final semi-house, I live on the top floor, I can never hear those below me in my flat. I can occasionally hear the room next to mine in the semi next to me. I can however hear people if they're being loud on their bottom floor, and I'm on the top floor and can't if they're on the bottom floor.

kd
 
I would imagine the ceiling in a flat would act as a giant speaker board and just pass any noise upwards. Obviously you would hear a lot of footfall from a flat above, we used to hear muffled conversations a lot.

In houses with a party wall you get acoustially weak points where the timbers fit into the wall, so you hear more thudding as they walk up the stairs and clunks as they plug the kettle in.

Nothing that ever bothered me anyway, we had a musician next door and I never heard a note.

Of course in a modern estate home the walls are made of tissue paper (BS:67541) and you can hear the mice wiping their bottoms.
 
Thanks for the informative posts chaps, most appreciated.

I guess it's down to a bit of pot lucky.

I'm hoping to go with a end terrace/semi detached where the joining houses living rooms aren't sharing the same wall. We'll see.

I'm avoiding new builds like the plague. Went round one recently, the walls sounded so hollow.
 
Halls-adjoining is a much more desirable option than rooms-adjoining. But as has been said above, a lot depends on construction.

We used to live in the top half a 1910 halls-adjoining semi. We coudn't hear a thing from nextdoor in the rear part of the house, and only if it was very loud (like a party) in the front where the room was the whole width. We could hear almost everything from downstairs though. Now we're in a 1904 terrace and again hear next to nothing from either side. The partition walls in both are a double course of brick and v dense.

My inlaws live in a 60's semi with a breezeblock & plaster partition wall. You can hear the neighbours if they talk loudly or laugh :(
 
I think it depends on the age of the building.

In my mum and dads 1970's house you can never here anything from next door

In my current 1bed flat thing in a type of building that I cant think of the name at this very moment (it begins with a T) I can hear me neighbours alarm like its in the next room and I can even hear when they switch a socket on lol...

I never hear anything from downstairs though
 
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