soundproofing semi-detached

Hi folks,

I am thinking of soundproofing the party wall (brick) in my loft.

Can anybody recommend any cheap materials for the job? A member of another forum gave me a link to this site: http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/soundproofing/amw.htm

Can anybody tell me whether this AMW material works ok? This is about the cheapest option I have found, and from what it says its the most suitable too.

Has anyone tried using ordinary materials i.e. not necessairly 'sound proofing' materials? What are your thoughts on this?

There are some gaps in the bricks which need filling in too. Is there any suitable foams/fillers which would be suitable?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

It would help. I have some 4" thick over my door covered in material and it helped a fair bit.

You would do a lot better to build a extra skin on the wall as described by myself and Matty in the recent acoustics thread in the Hi-Fi forum.

"Sound proofing is about isolation as much as absorption. To stop the sound getting to the neighbours you want to isolate your room. A common method is to build a room within a room but you might not want to go to that length.

To make a current wall more sound-isolating you can build a second skin with sheets of plasterboard and space them away from the current wall by about 4 inches. Behind this the gap should be filled with fibreglass sheets, but make sure neither walls touch this because you don’t want vibration transfer so there needs to be a small gap on either side. After that you need to seal all gaps with bathroom sealant or similar so that the new wall is air-tight, this means right along the ceiling, floor, walls and gaps between the plasterboard sheets. At the end you should have a pretty good wall! Please note this really only works on a concrete floor because on a wooden one the sound will transfer through the floor by vibration – that’s why we normally build an entire room within a room suspended on rubber mountings rather than just a single wall."

"Another method of soundproofing a room is to use a constrained layer damping material between 2 layers of plasterboard, can be applied direct to existing stud wall or can be used as part of a new construction."

"cant think of the wall name, im thinking of using a material like Greenglue in the wall construction(www.audioalloy.com) rather than other methods like MLV
lots of wall constructions here: http://www.asc-soundproof.com/wd-desw.htm"

 

Hi Tenson, thanks for the post.

I wont be going as far as build an entire room within the room - I want something easy and relatively cheap.

Do you think I could maybe used green glue sandwiched between two layers of plasterboard??? Any idea how much greenglue is, and the best place to buy? Thanks again

 

You could do, but a complete air gap would be better.

In your position I would build some wood 'battings' to hold a layer of Acoustic Mineral Wood off the wall by about half an inch. The wood battings can't touch either. Then build a plasterboard wall in front of that, also not touching the AMW and seal it with Bathroom sealant, Greenglue, or Caulk.

 

Hi all

the greenglue is applied between the layers of plasterboard to act as a damping material, increases low frequency performance of the wall by stopping resonance and reduces TL in the lower frequencies, properly sealed the GG assembly showed give you an stc of 52...

 

Thanks for the diagram, looks good. Surely the wooden battings would need to be touching both the brick wall and AMW, and also between the AMW and plasterboard??? If not how would the materials be secure? I think I may have miss-read the post.

Matty,
Using Tenson's method, would it be better to apply green glue to the plasterboard and AMW??

Thanks

 

The wood battings run from each side wall, as do the wood supports for the plasterboard. If you can't run them between side walls, go from ceiling to floor. If they touch the wall and/or the plasterboard the sound isolation will be severally compromised by vibration transfer. It is also important to have the plasterboard braced well by the supports so they do not resonate much.

I suppose you could skip the separate wood supports for the plasterboard and have the plasterboard stuck right onto the same wooden battings (though make them stronger) as supports the AMW. The AMW won't really transfer that much vibration.

 

the ideal application for greenglue is to have it between 2 layers of plasterboard, build the wal as Tenson describes and it will be very good. I will post up a bit more info when i get home!

 

standard wall of batons, with fiberglass inside and plasterboard, add a layer of greenglue and plasterboard on both sides to get an STC of 56, or a single side of greenglue for an STC of 52, the wall construction that Tenson uses above would also benefit from gg, all these constructions can also use MLV or soundboard, depending on what you want to achieve

 

Thanks for the info MAtty, do you have any idea on how effective the same design would be using simple flexible silicone stuff you get in a tube? I am just interested in how much 'better' Greenglue is than a normal construction material.

 

well greenglue is supposed to be used between layers of plasterboard, not as a sealant, it would work like this:



this shows the typical construction, the white is plasterboard(i forgot to add that to the piccie)
Silicon or caulk to seal the edges, the GG in the sandwich.

im not sure that silicon would be that much use between plasterboards, ive not come across it before!

 

Just a quick add-on: many plasterboard manufacturers have a lot of free information on their websites eg. the Lafarge Drywall manual:

http://www.lafargeplasterboard.co.uk/drywall_manual/linings/default.html (see 'Cormet Dryliner to upgrade internal walls')

Section on acoustics:
http://www.lafargeplasterboard.co.uk/drywall_manual/introduction/default.html

Sample installation guide:
http://www.lafargeplasterboard.co.uk/pdfs/indywli/H3672_1.pdf

 

nice links Felix, thanks!

 

Much good advice !!

 

yeah great links there, i'll refer back to this when I tackle the job.

 

Good soundproofing materials

I used http://soundproofingforum.co.uk/ as they seemed to have good prices for soundproofing materials, and they were also close to me so I could pickup the stuff myself and save on delivery.

http://soundservice.co.uk/
also seem to have good prices and I think are cheaper on some as they are the main importers for quite a few products, but delivery can be high. I always phone round for the best quote including delivery then you can make a proper comparison.