Noisy after ceiling replaster— ideas?

[PantTwizzler]

The old Victorian ceiling in our kitchen diner fell down and we had it replaced. Trouble is, it’s very echoey in there now and the noise travels almost unimpeded to the bedroom above (which is uncarpeted). It stops my children getting to sleep.

What’s the best/least disruptive solution? Put in some sort of insulation under the floorboards upstairs? Or just thick wall to wall carpets?

TIA.

That will be because the old ceiling was heavy and lots of strips of wood across. The new will be a thin large panel that can reverberate.
The insurance company presumably wanted to do it at minimum cost, but a proper specification would be double board with staggered joints and ideally mineral rock wool in the void. It can help if you can over board the existing and keep all the weight in, but that's not really possible if it's collapsed

Interesting, thanks. We didn’t think to involve the insurers! Thought it was just one of those things...

Could mineral wool be added now and would it help much?

An old lath and plaster ceiling is usually very thick and heavy, and this makes it good at blocking noise.

If you can take up the floor in the room above, you could add dense mineral-wool batts, which will muffle noise somewhat. This will be quite a lot of work, unless you are going to take up the floor anyway. I don't think that it will be as good as your heavy old ceiling. I can't remember but there are test figures around somewhere.

Carpet and heavy felt underlay is probably the easiest thing to do.

Having an extra layer of plasterboard added at this point would probably cost as much as you've just paid (sad)

Carpet will help as will books in wooden bookcases and fabric covered large things like sofas echos are caused by souls bouncing off hard surfaces - so adding natural elements that absorb sound like wood fabric and cork are all good

Oh re insurers i think i must have invented that part of your post!
Yes they would probably pay if it was the result of a leak or other unexpected event, but you're right if it was just the ceiling got old then you'd have to pay your self!