The neighbours can hear us!

[niavasha]

hi all

nightmare of nightmares, the neighbours can hear us!

we live in a 1904 terraced house. we partitioned one of the upstairs bedrooms, which is against the party wall of our neighbours, into a bathroom and smaller bedroom.

there is a chimney breast that runs half way between both new rooms. in the bathroom, the floor is tiled with bath and loo etc.

However, owing to another problem with the neighbour they just informed us that they can hear everything we do in the bathroom as their bedroom is on the other side!

Is there anything we can do? The sound presumably must be going under the floor boards? Could we put some sound dampening material under the boards to mute this?

Any ideas appreciated!

Thanks Harry

[TonyK]

Yep make a lot of noise.. pretend if need be. It will embarass them into sorting the problem for you. Either that or you will become good friends.

;-)

[Chris Bacon]

Unpleasant for them, as well as embarassing for you!

I would not expect any connection with the next door house in terms of the floor running through. How are the fittings fixed, to which wall? Did you replace or tinker about with the floor before tiling?

I'm assuming you've got something like this:

##############P#A#R#T#Y##W#A#L#L############### | ####C#H##B#R#S#T#### | | | | | | | | | | | | | | BATHROOM | BEDROOM | | | | | | | | | | ###############################################

[Set Square]

Are they complaining - or do you simply want to deprive them of their entertainment?

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Ask them do they wan't to buy better "Sherry glasses". :-)

-- HRH Ben

[Chris Bacon]

Hm, forgot to mention, did this go through the pen-pushers at the council? If no, might be unfortunate if the neighbour complained to them...

[Lobster]

I recently did up a terraced house of similar age, and while the 1st floor was up I noticed that you could see right through under the neighbour's floor in several places. Same above the 1st floor ceiling. The ceiling/floor joists were actually continuous with the neighbour's joists - in itself bad news for sound transmission amongst other things

- but anywhere where the old mortar had fallen out, there was a clear air passage right through.

So for starters, you need to whip the floorboards up and check the integrity of the party wall. A bummer that it's tiled, though!

David

[niavasha]

Hehe, thanks to all for your comments! ;) I might have to start straining hard...! ;)

But in absence of that, yes, the diagram is exactly how it is. The partition wall is exactly half way through the chimney breast.

I'm pretty sure they must have put something ontop of the floor boards so that the adhesive for the tiles and the tiles could settle properly, but i'm not sure what...

The loo is actually connected to a saniflo that sits against the chimney breast, and the bath runs along the left hand wall of the diagram. I think it's sitting on the floor with a wooden frame so the tiles can be attached. not sure if it's fixed to the wall, but probably is.

Seeing a later post, about seeing through to the neighbours, this sounds like a potential issue, but i'm pretty sure we didnt see anything through when the boards where up. then again they were polish builders so i'm not sure everything got communicated!

[Lobster]

Ah - I imagine that's what the neighbours don't like then!

Bear in mind you wouldn't expect to see daylight - any gap would be through to the neighbour's underfloor space (dark). And you'd only need miniscule gaps for a large amount of sound leakage.

David

[OLDTOWNGUY]

Our kitchen is below the bedroom of the nextdoor terraced house. Certain noises do go up & down, mostly our washing dishes. The Council inspector declaimed only one thing would stop sound, and I sort of believe him. That is mass. Something massive is needed to soak up sound. We settled on gravel above the ceiling, which almost works. Phil

[fred]

In article , OLDTOWNGUY writes

FWIW, I'd have thought sand would have done a better job as gravel will have air gaps, I'd then apply some sort of conformal coat over the top to definitely eliminate airborne sound.

[niavasha]

thanks. I was thinking of some expanding foam, i can just make a hole in the tiles under the bath and then inject away?

fred wrote:

[tony sayer]

In article , Set Square writes

We used to live in such a place and the silly giggles of the couple next door used to have us almost roaring with laughter at their antics whereas if it were some rhythmic thumping and yelling then we could understand that;)))

Thank god for the wherewithal to by a detached gaff:))

[John Cartmell]

Perhaps a touch inventive but, as your neighbours have the problem, would it be possible to do the work from their side of the divide?

[Ed_Zep]

Eat more fibre? :)

[The Natural Philosopher]

....

Shag in the bedroom instead.

And insatll recording equipment in YOUR bathrooom.

And blackmail them.