Soundproofing a room...?

[spark]

I'm just buying a house which needs sorting out throughout. I have a large home cinema set-up and would like to soundprooof the lounge as much as possible to minimise the effect it may have on the neighbours. What's the best way to do it without loosing 2 ft from the lounge? I was thinking of screwing 2x2 to the wall, packing in between the battons with rockwool (or selotex?), then double skin plasterboard? All the walls of the house are solid brick, would soundproofing really make any difference? Also thinking of doing the same thing to the ceiling. Would this be ok? Any info or advice appreciated. I'm not a builder but I have the means to do the work, just not the experience to know what will work best.

 

[breezer]

egg boxes, no i am not joking, i have been to several music studios, and they all have egg boxes glued to the ceiling / walls, their reasons are that a flat surface will refect the sound where as eggboxes dont. the also have "humped foam" (don't know what its called but it is foam that looks like egg boxes) it is done in alternate squares (like a chess board) and painted what ever colour required, but they all seem to have black and grey.

it actually doesnt look too bad (but the doors in and out are about 6 inches thick)

 

[theWilse]

This may be a pain in the ar5e, but I remember seeing in "what hifi" type mag, a bloke who wanted to sound proof his cinema room, his solution was a little more elegant than the eggboxes... (but a damn site harder!)

He screwed batons on the walls, then plasterboarded, him & his son then filled the cavity with .... SAND!

They said it took ages, but the sound reduction was incredible.

Make your own mind up, but I'm sure someone here may have a better solution for filling the cavity, with something other than sand,??

hth


wilse

 

[masona]

Also you might like to see this

 

[skellem]

I seem to be plugging British Gypsums website a lot, but here's a link to their quiet wall system. Battens and 2 layers of board sounds good, make sure it's "soundbloc" board and BG also do an "Isowool acoustic partition roll" that you could put in the cavity.

 

[masona]

Spark,just thought of something.............

When you soundproof room,you will find most sounds vibrate out of windows!

Does this room have windows ? If so it need to be double glazed and a secondary glazing approx 150mm further back with sound insulation board round the edge.If the windows is out of sight use 9" glass blocks instead of windows.

And if you have wooden flooring you could find the vibrating can be heard out of your air-vent !! I can hear my next door neighbour TV out of their air-vent and thats not even a cinema !

 

[spark]

Thanks for the info guys. Have any of you had any experience with 'resilient bars'? It seems to be a good idea but the only downside seems to be that I will make my room a fair bit smaller and they can also be used on the ceiling. I have got a window but the house is in such a state they are right down the list, I need to do lots before I can even move in! It has a solid concrete floor fortunately. There's lots of people selling their own versions of everything and it's so hard to know which are good and which are not. At least BG have a good name I suppose. I've also been told to use fire doors for the room and to use smoke seals around them, not just draft seals.

 

[masona]

They use resilient bars in hearing test room,so they are okay.It doesn't matter whatever you do it will make the room smaller.All depends how much you're willing to pay out.Just another thought as you've got window,have you thought about having total blackout roller blind in a seal slide runner like they do in hospital for eye tests.

Also my wife is a curtain maker and have made a heavy duty fabric material curtain for somebody which reduce noise level from outside traffic.

 

[petersonj]

Theres a new nano vacum techonolgy thats created a soundproofing mat.

this really is a breakthrough in this field, only 1.2mm but 22dB Rw redutcion in addtiion to whatever you have already. Won't help that much with real deep bass but nothing except mass will stop that.

You could buy a sound level meter from here and get readings from your neighbours house to see what reduction you need. They do an analouge one for £25 as well, it a fun tool to have when testing your setup as well.