How do I insulate sound between floors? Rental unit

Our renters have their bedroom in the basement, right underneath the first floor kitchen (bungalow house). The noise from the kitchen is fairly loud in the mornings. Just wondering what material can I use to reduce the noise from the ceiling. I want a solution that would not be too expensive. What about putting the pink insulation between the joist and then a drop ceiling. Would that cut down on the noise level or would the difference not be significant? I suspect some of the noise travels through the heating ducts, but I imagine there is no easy solution to that.

Reply to
lbbs
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To insulate (rather isolate) for sound in a structure, you need to seperate the two structures. The kitchen floor from the bedroom ceiling..

I'm assuming you have a ceiling in the basement that is and that sheet rock or ply, etc. is fastened to the bottom of the kitchen floor joists. This is your problem and inserting insulation between the joist wouldn't help.

The correct way would be to remove the ceiling material. Install a floating ceiling structure of that is only supported at the outer headers or basement walls, with only minimal connections to the house joists. You would need to find some type of suspension hangers that provide this noise isolation..

The simplest way would be to have a cushion type floor covering on your kitchen floor. Visit a commercial floor covering store or a full service floor covering store. Tell them what you looking for.. Perhaps just a area pad or carpet in the main areas of traffic. Rubber gliders on the chairs, etc.

The very, very simplest would be house slippers for everyone in the upstairs house.

Steve

Reply to
Steve

I think Steve summed it up rather well. I will only add a couple of notes.

Standard insulation has very little sound deadening ability. They make special acoustical insulation that is better, but not really good.

I believe your concern about the vent ducts is sound (pun intended)

Take a look hear (pun?) for a few more ideas.

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Reply to
Joseph Meehan

First, kitchens are "hard" places. Tiled surfaces reflect and re-reflect the sound around and you probably hear both. As one post mentioned, covering tiled surfaces should definitely help. Packing insulation - really squashing it - into the spaces between the ceiling joists should reduce the higher frequencies. I did that once using a

4" deep frame, with gypsum board on the outside, against a brick wall between two rooms. The insulation was fiberglass. Before the application, I could hear a radio and voices very clearly. Afterwards, both were very muffled and barely audible. Lower frequency sounds will probably not be much affected by this solution. Noise can be controlled in metal heating ducts by rubber-like sprays or sticking a thin rubber-like sheet to the surface. However, gaining access to the ducts to do this may be next to impossible.

One very knowledgeable person in this group reported that using lead sheet is very effective. However, even that wouldn't control the noise that passes through the joists.

Good luck with your project and let us know how it works out for you.

Sd

Reply to
Sundog

The pink stuff is good heat insulation, not very good sound insulation. What is there now? Is there a finished ceiling, or just the bare joists downstairs?

To cut sound transmission you usually want to have mass, which is usually applied cheapest and easiest via drywall.

Reply to
Heathcliff Bambino

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