How would you sound proof / deaden an old house (semi)?

[Mr. Clueless]

I'm more curious about the approach that would be taken to be honest. With everything else we've got going on at the moment this is a million miles away right now, if we ever get it done at all, but i'd still like to know the approach.

Basically we have a 1930s semi. It's a bit annoying in that the living rooms meet as do the 2 main bedrooms. Shame it isn't the stairs that meet.

Our neighbours seem decent enough people, pleasant to talk to through the day. Our only gripe with them is noise at night, especially Friday & Saturday (although not limited to). They have a drink & suddenly become deaf so start shouting. The time that brought things to a head with a bit of confrontation, they came in at 12:30am & the bloke and his mate came upstairs & started shouting in the bedroom. My wife was asleep & she said it was that loud she panicked as she thought someone had broke in & was in the bedroom. Obviously she came to & they're still shouting & banging drawers.

My wife doesn't like me putting the TV up. Says it'll end up in a tit-for-tat war. Problem is you need to put your TV up as their loud TV makes it hard for us (me) to hear ours. One weekend my wife was away so i had nobody to restrict me For reference our TV is usually at volume 15-20. I started watching a long movie around 11:30pm and i started at this volume. They had their music up & started to crank it louder, singing/shouting & screeching (the latter being her) at the top of their voices. Long story short by the time i was done i was watching my TV on volume 67. I wasn't turning my TV up to try and annoy them, simply i had to have it that loud to hear what was being said in the movie!! I recorded a video of it while i muted the TV & their music & singing sounded like it was coming from my own living room it was that loud, no exaggeration.

This went on until after 2am. Earplugs are our best friend.



So now you've a basic idea of how bad it can be...

* The floor in the living room is timber floor. Not chipboard but timber strips. The subfloor is about 1mtr drop.
* The living room wall that connects on to theirs is now plasterboarded using dot-&-dab method. Walls have been tanked.
* We have a chimney breast
* When i lifted the floorboards of the room above there appeared to be no insulation in between the joists
* The bedroom walls that meet are original horsehair plaster which is on to brickwork. There is a cavity wall although would this party wall also have a cavity? I know the front of the house does.
* Our loft does have loft insulation.

I know sound can travel in funny ways so just wondered how you would go about deadening this?

Also how confident would you be that it would deaden the sound travel well or would you expect your approach to make minimal difference?

 

[^woody^]

You need to talk to them informally, or get the council to do it formally and ask them to moderate their behaviour. Thats the only real option. They might not even be aware its a problem to you.

The soundproofing needs to be in their rooms to stop sound getting out, not in yours trying to stop it getting in - as this is both costly, intrusive and very difficult to acheive in practice.

 

[footprints]

You need to talk to them informally, or get the council to do it formally and ask them to moderate their behaviour. Thats the only real option. They might not even be aware its a problem to you.

The soundproofing needs to be in their rooms to stop sound getting out, not in yours trying to stop it getting in - as this is both costly, intrusive and very difficult to acheive in practice.

I feel your pain! We had the same trouble in our first house, in the end we moved!
As woody says the only way is to stop the noise getting into the structure in the first place by fitting sound absorbing material in the noisy area or stopping the source of the noise, there were times I would have done that had I owned a shotgun I can tell you!
You can certainly try speaking politely to them always worth a go but some people just live that lifestyle and cannot, or will not think about other people.

 

[JP_]

I looked a lot into this last year. We ended up moving rather than spending 5k trying to soundproof the house!

If you do it, you need to soundproof the whole wall, going below floor to sub-base, and up into the ceiling. Greenglue stuff, stud wall (I was thinking metal) with acoustic insulation and double up plasterboard. Basically, making a thick wall that is separate from the shared wall. Seal all those electric sockets etc. or better still move them, put in more / better floor insulation, better carpet underlay etc.

All very expensive. And in summer when the windows are open, you still hear it all.

Our new house is half the size, falling apart, cold, a bit damp (ok not too bad) and by a busy road - but its detached. We are happy again. And I am bloody busy!

 

[Mr. Clueless]

You need to talk to them informally,

You can certainly try speaking politely to them

To be honest neither of us like confrontation, me nor my wife. The mentality of today is i do what i want when i want & F anyone who stands in front of me. For me to go round there & basically be saying hey i've got a problem with your noise levels to the point it bothers me enough to come & see you about it i would have to be ill, my wife ill, be totally sleep deprived or something to that effect where the tolerance levels are literally zero. I've no problem reacting if they addressed the situation first but i never like to take confrontation to someone, never have done. I feel totally uncomfortable about it.

However...

They might not even be aware its a problem to you.

This one is not possible.

The day they just kept getting louder & louder all the way to basically shouting levels at 2am. We can hear them talking through the day so it makes sense they can hear us ... so you know how sound transfers so if you get louder it's going to sound louder. So at 2am & you're shouting, it's going to be an unreasonable nuisance.

And even if on the off chance that they're too stupid to realise that, they sure realised it the night the wife shouted through the bedroom will you shut the F up i'm trying to sleep (at 12:30am, how inconsiderate of her! </sarcasm>) when he was shouting really loud, banging drawers & goofing around with his friend. Then they kept saying in a childish voice, shut up, shut up, shut up. You could hear his Mrs shouting (yes) through to them to knock it off as they were getting out of hand (not that it's stopped her since!)

After that day he kept a low profile for a long time, especially around my wife.




We could never understand people who buy detached houses where there's about 4inch between yours & the next house. Now we can. My wife came from an end of terrace where the stairs meet & i've lived in a true detached house all my life.





Thanks for the responses about the sound deadening. At least we now know it's a no-go.

Just thankful they don't have kids ... yet.

 

[JP_]

if on the off chance that they're too stupid to realise that,

we did talk a few times to our neighbours. On one occasion she said, after we complained about banging on walls, that she was going to talk to us about the "level of noise" coming from our house. I pointed out that the sound travels in both directions and we could hear them too. She just could not believe they made a noise, even though they had more children and a total disregard for anybody around them! Such is life I guess.

 

[JP_]

At least we now know it's a no-go.
.

Don't dismiss it totally - I don't think you'll ever eliminate the problem, but you could probably make a big difference. After expensive quotes, I thought about putting in DIY fitted wardrobes with some acoustic insulation shoved behind, lots of clothes and all the spare bedding jammed in, and book shelves in any gaps, jammed with all the books I never read.

There may be some practical solutions that will help, if moving and rebuilding the wall is not an option.

What got me was knowing I'd be spending thousands to reduce their noise, which would involve losing space, and they benefit too, and pay nothing.

 

[Mr. Clueless]

Don't dismiss it totally - I don't think you'll ever eliminate the problem, but you could probably make a big difference. After expensive quotes, I thought about putting in DIY fitted wardrobes with some acoustic insulation shoved behind, lots of clothes and all the spare bedding jammed in, and book shelves in any gaps, jammed with all the books I never read.

There may be some practical solutions that will help, if moving and rebuilding the wall is not an option.

What got me was knowing I'd be spending thousands to reduce their noise, which would involve losing space, and they benefit too, and pay nothing.

Funny you mention the wardrobes.

When we viewed the house the previous owners had wardrobes on the party wall in the bedroom. They were floor to ceiling i think pretty much all the way apart from the corner where they had something like a tall cabinet thing with a TV on top.

We'll never know but it makes you wonder IF it was for the noise levels.


My wife has not terrible but not great anxiety. For those who don't have it or understand it many think it's nothing & just a case of 'get on with it' but it can be bad for those who suffer from it. Tonight we can hear them (mostly her) and it's something that would grate a little on my wife but for me it's just a bit of a nuisance though they're actually not doing anything excessive. It's simply the downside of the layout of our semi.

However when things start getting towards 11pm & most certainly 12am-2am & they're loud, and i don't mean a low hum talking kind of loud that sounds loud because everything else is silent, i mean a singing at the top of your voice kind of loud, shouting and banging drawers (because we've heard them open drawers in a morning so we know they CAN make an effort to do it quietly), when it gets to that point then THAT is when it's too much.

They've only gone way OTT twice in 2 years but they've been what i'd consider quite loud a number of weekends. Like i say it's mostly her & mostly when they've had a drink.

We did buy the place hoping to never have to move but it makes you think.

 

[JP_]

Sounds just like our old neighbours. They used to go out to the drive and slam their bins or pretend to sweep but really just hit the fence with the broom. If they heard our kids playing, they'd bang on the walls, once so hard a picture fell and the glass smashed.

Oh, and I know all about anxiety!

 

[Keithmac]

It's not the houses fault, it's the neighbours unfortunately.

I've been in your position personally and ended up "having a word" which did the job for a while (they moved eventually thank goodness).

Best off doing it the day after a noisey night, in the day and face to face.

If that doesn't work the Council are your next port of call (noise nuisance).

Quite a lot of work putting up sound deadening board (I looked into it as well) but if you can run the wardrobes across the party wall then you could experiment behind that.

Need to seal under the floorboards as well and possibly loft part wall.

Good luck!, it's a shame people are dragged up not brought up nowadays and have no thought or regard for others..

 

[endecotp]

Do they own or rent?

 

[Mr. Clueless]

Well i wonder if one of them is registered on this forum because the f##ers did it again this weekend.

Saturday night i went to bed somewhere around 11:30pm-11:45pm. I could hear them from my bedroom but it was just a sort of low hum sort of thing so i tried to ignore it & obviously i fell asleep.

2am i start hearing a noise in my dream only to then realise they've got their bloody music up, they're singing away and the noise is travelling upstairs to our bedroom. Oh and i didn't mistype 12am, i actually meant 2am!!

I go downstairs only to hear her shouting ... READY STEADY GO! And off he goes singing. I get the impression they may have some karaoke game or something because the music genres often vary wildly. Not that people can't have a diverse taste in music, of course they can, but it's just a guess.

Anyway i set my phone to record video. I'll post the clip here in a sec. I'm disappointed with the outcome as it doesn't give an accurate reflection of how loud it was.

I went back to bed, put my earplugs in but then you get to that pi$$ed off state where you're then concentrating on what just annoyed you. Although i have my earplugs in i'm wondering if i can still hear them or whether i'm just replaying what i heard over & over in my head (which i was - as i took my earplugs out and it was some new song instead).

Long story cut short it was 4am before i became relaxed or tired enough to go back to sleep and it was about 3:30am-4:00am before they put an end to it and went to bed themselves.

We're usually pretty considerate of others. We talk quietly early in the morning, whispering pretty much if it's quite early as we know noise can travel and how you can hear each other through these walls, we close drawers very carefully to the point of not making them 'knock' shut & we'll just get it later that day/evening, but the next morning we were up quite early & i'd neglected the hoovering so had a sudden urge to get the house clean, paying attention to the bedroom. The windows were full of condensation so i had to give them a real good going over with the Karcher window vac too and after i was knackered from that i had to relax myself in front of the TV with the music station on. Only problem was i found i couldn't hear too well. Maybe i'd compacted the ear wax, so the only answer was to have the TV up loud enough so that i could hear it clearly!!!!

Inconsiderate tossers!!



Twice i've recorded the noise. This first clip was from earlier in the year...

That was just after 12am but it went on till about 2:30am that night. That was me sat on the sofa & just set the phone to record a video with my TV on mute. The sofa backs on to the wall opposite the party wall which is 3.5mtr away.
With both of these i'm disappointed in how it represents the noise. In person it was much much louder but for some reason it sounds quieter on a video recording. Try it yourself if you wish to see how your phone dumbs down what you hear to the output on the phone.
This was with an iPhone 6S if it matters any.

That was this weekend just after 2am. I went downstairs (i should've recorded from our bedroom really) and just again set the phone to record a video to pick up the audio.

Hopefully you can appreciate how loud it probably was to show as that on the phone because with the output it's showing i just don't feel it does it justice.

Do they own or rent?

They own it.


As for the comment regards slamming bins, i remember one time i think it was early last year when they must've been going away.
About 6am on the Saturday they were up making a right noise, opening cupboards, drawers, the radio was on LOUD which woke my wife up (i'd gone to work). She said they would go out, put something in the car, slam the door (or so it sounded) come back in, you'd hear the front door go & repeat this god knows how many times. Why they couldn't just leave their car door open (it wasn't raining) and fill the car is beyond me but no they had to keep shutting the door again & again & again which in the afternoon might be a bit of an eye roller but at that time on the weekend you think ... were you born an arsehole?

 

[John D v2.0]

Sorry to hear that, sounds awful. You really need to get environment health involved.
When we're students we had a party for my housemates birthday and it was pretty late running, this was the first one and we got a letter a couple of weeks later from the council saying we would get fined up to 1k if we did it again. So the council would do more than that for you.
I remember someone got a conviction for playing music loudly, I think they had an asbo or an injunction to stop them doing it and they carried on so they were commotion a criminal offence.
See where you can get with the council, clearly yours should be a priority case.

 

[Mr. Clueless]

Well it's nice to see that the first reply to that isn't one that says it isn't that loud lol.

All in all there's been about 4 weekends like that this year. Plenty of weekends where they're a bit loud but 'only' about 4 like that. Those are recordings from 2 of them. I say only 4, it's 4 too many but it's not like i could have any council member round and say right for sure it'll happen this weekend because it likely wont.

 

[Charlie_Powell]

This is a very old thread but I am responding to ask did they ever find a solution?