Soundproofing

[AllChange2020]

Has anyone had soundproofing installed in their property?

We moved into a lower villa on Friday and the noise from above is horrific! We have a 6 month old baby who is usually a sound sleeper but the relentless banging and general noises (hoovering, etc) are disrupting his sleep. It's also pissing me off massively! The living room light fitting actually shakes and the light flickers from their stomping about!

I was just looking for a rough idea of costs (I know this can vary wildly depending on material used and the size of the property). We're in a 3 bed, approx 75 square meters and looking at having all ceilings soundproofed.

If anyone has had this done and can give me an idea of what they paid I'd be grateful.

TIA.

I had it done along one side of a terrace and it was brilliant! I bought the stuff and paid tradespeople separately and it came in about £1k. It is messy though as your ceilings will need plastering.

Thanks @user1471538283, it's good to know you found it effective.

As we've just moved in, we are planning on redecorating anyway so now's the time. I'm currently listening to them running up and down their hall whilst DH is next door trying to settle DS to sleep and it's making my blood boil!

Have you bought OP? If not & just renting I'd move! Soundproofing doesn't tend to work well for above/below noise. It also tends to work better if its on the side where the noise originates.

We soundproofed a top floor flat for neighbours as an elderly uncle lived below them & we asked if we could install at our expense when they renovated. It made little difference due to the build/age of the flats. Muffled but you could still hear vibration(stomping) type noises.

It sounds like the neighbours are just making normal everyday noise too, no screaming, loud music etc. Not their fault you are below, you'll drive yourself mad getting this angry this early about it.

@user1471538283

I was thinking of doing this to my terrace on one side cos I can hear my neighbour scraping his dinner plates!!

Did you lose a lot of space? Did you do just the walls? What product did you use?

@Kamma89 yeah, we've bought.

It definitely is just day to day noise, nothing antisocial in terms of shouting, music etc. (We can hear music but it's not excessively loud). Although I agree, it's not the neighbours fault, it is still really disruptive and needs sorted for our own comfort. That's why we are thinking of what we can do rather than asking them to do something about it.

They have 2 young boys who run up and down the hall for hours on end and sound like they're going to come through the ceiling. Again, I don't blame them as you can't expect kids to sit quietly in the corner but we can't live with the level of noise.

We lived in a flat previously and although we heard our neighbours, it was tolerable noise as the building was older and better built. It appears that this house (although not new - 1950s build) was poorly insulated and there is zero deafening between the 2 properties.

I've spoken to someone about lowering our ceilings are having insulation and acoustic plasterboard put in and think that this is going to be our only option. I know it wouldn't block out the noise completely but even if it reduces it by 50% it'd be a big improvement.

Acoustic dampening plasterboard will help, however if you think about it, the floor ( your ceiling) could be totally hollow, so imagine an acoustic guitar body and how that amplifies any adjacent noise .

You could go the usual route of obtaining quotes for the work from a general builder, but personally I would invest some extra cash into having a specialist company advise and quote, with a specific target of noise reduction. But get them to relate this to you in plain simple terms as loudness is quoted in decibels which is measured on a logarithmic scale.