My friend has a flat with two bedrooms, between the rooms is a wall which is studwork and plasterboard. The soundproofing is apparently appalling.
One idea was to add another layer of plasterboard to either or both walls, or fill the cavity with rockwool, but not sure either of these would really solve the problem.
Any ideas for a relatively cheap solution to soundproofing this wall, or has anybody had similar problems which were solved?
Not talking studio quality, just a significant reduction in decibels. Eggboxes are a no go, she wants it to look 'nice'.
If you can find the studs in the partition wall, then it is possible to strap on top of them with 50mm (2'') X 25mm (1'') timbers, and fix another layer of plasterboard on top. In between the new board and the existing board you can spray expanding foam to provide a bit of bulk to the new skin. This is a cheap and cheerful way of making a great sound proofing system for stopping a lot of multi-frequency noise from adjacent rooms.
Because it is only the extra gap with foam in it that does the main work of sound proofing, the new plasterboard skin can be made in rough timber studs, because no-one is going to see it in the finished job, and 9mm thick board. This all helps to keep the cost down but gives a very effective sound proofing method.
This method is now more commonly used on the internal side of old stone or thermal block walls, and it not only helps stop sound penetrating through, but it also helps in the heat retention or expulsion in the rooms. The new skin is built up from the floor by lying the plasterboard on its longest edge, like cross bonding, and as each layer rises up from the floor the foam is sprayed in up to next level. Remember to lay the noggins in between each layer as they are filled with foam to hold the edges of the board tightly.
For the first layer the plasterboard is affixed, running lengthways, to a noggin across the bottom, and studs at each side. The foam is then sprayed in and a noggin is slotted down into place to affix the top length of the first layer, and the bottom length of the second layer. ie Providing an inch of fixing to the noggin for the top of the first layer of plasterboard, and an inch of fixing for the bottom of the second layer of plasterboard.
What about the final layer when it reaches the ceiling? It will be hard to fill it with foam from the top as the others were.
Don't waste time with all this waffle from "don't knowers". Get sheets of Thermoboard, which are 9.5 plasterboard with bonded styrene 25mm included. Use Dry Wall adhesive and 8 by 4 sheets can be applied quickly. Whole room done in a day. buy boards as tapered edge and tape up joints. If your really careful no plastering needed. look on British Gypsum site for details. Couldn't be easier.
Fill the wall voids with "high density" Rockwool slabs cut right so that they jam in (reduces airbourne sounds). Over the studs have counter batons (horizontal) to reduce the contact area with the studs (sound can travel though the studs. Flanking sounds). Have two layers of plasterboard and stagger the joints. Voila!
Egg boxes would make f-all difference to noise transmission anyway - unless you compressed hundreds of them into a nice dense material. For sound insulation, the first thing you need is mass. There are no lightweight answers.
The outer walls of this place here only had the old style dry wall lath and plaster, so this was done all the walls beside the windows and it cut down the noise of traffic and kids screaming outside to absolutely whisper quiet. Once the new double glazing went in along with it the heat loss too was reduced to next to nothing. I've also recently seen it being used in an hotel renovation to reduce the sounds between rooms and it seems to working well there too. So it works as far as I can tell and it saves pulling off the existing plasterboard because all that's removed is the skirting and coving before the new layer is applied.
Dead right. You need mass and it needs to be decoupled mechanically from the existing wall. A double thickness of plasterboard on studs that don't touch the existing wall with the space loosly filled with glassfibre wool should give about 20dB attenuation at mid frequencies. Caulking (sealing leaks) is also very important.
the idea of fixing eggboxes to the wall comes from methods used to reduce the _reflected_ sound within same room. THis is useless for reducing sound transmission. It can even make matters slightly worse as the transmitted sound through the wall then becomes more noticable as it's less masked by sound created within the room.
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