Chimney breast and sound from neighbours

[SheWouldNever]

Our attached neighbours have removed their chimney breast on the attached wall. Our chimney breast is still there and isn’t filled in as there is a working fireplace below in the living room. Could the cavity be increasing the noise we can hear from next door?

We just moved into the house from a mid-terrace, where we could hear the occasional voices at shouting level. But here it is alarmingly loud between the walls, a kids bedroom backs onto our master and last night at 11pm I could hear giggling, coughing, and conversations at normal talking level. We plan to renovate so I will be looking into the best ways to soundproof, but for now I’m just pondering whether the chimney breast is possibly making noise worse. To make matters worse they have all wood floors next door so no carpet to dampen noise.

Have they only just removed it? I assume they got party wall permission and building regs for it?

@Poppiesway1 yes all done above board. They’ve just finished a whole house renovation and extension, all done with planning permission and building regs. We’re planning to do the same to ours.

Not sure how much thought their builders put into soundproofing / adding extra insulation to the party wall, though. Dread to think what the noise was like if it was worse than this before they renovated.

@SheWouldNever that’s good.
I used to live in an old 1900’s terrace. We could hear neighbours sloshing in bath and all sorts but the terrace were in now, (1930’s) is much more quieter. We have book cases up against the wall between chimney breast / in the alcoves.. but not a lot else to do. I’m lucky that neither of our neighbours children live at home now.

You need to soundproof all the attached walls or move. Their house sounds like an echo chamber

@user1471538283 we only moved in days ago so won’t be moving any time soon. We are planning a complete renovation of the house and will be removing our chimney breast too, so will definitely make sure to sound proof as much as possible, even if it means losing a few inches along the party wall. The new master bedroom will be at the rear and will have no walls attached to the neighbours, the current master will become one of our children’s bedrooms so it will be a kids / teenage room next to another kids / teenage room next door which is probably the best configuration in terms of noise.

It can happen. But normally when you remove the breast you consolidate the brickwork you've exposed and I wonder if they just whacked plasterboard over the front of it. Def. upgrade your side.

Maybe tell them since their works you can hear everything and if they can help your costs agreeing the PW notices you'll have more money to spend on sound insulation..

@pws1 I have no idea if the sound was worse or better before their works, as we didn't live here then. We moved last week and their work was completed a few months ago. We've already had preliminary chats about party wall agreements and I think they will be co-operative as they've just been through all that themselves so they know how it works / what is necessary and what is not.

@SheWouldNever that sounds encouraging. Fingers crossed then.