Sound Reduction

[rosinante]

Hello , chaps
My garage has a party wall with the neighbours garage, according to drawings and measurement there should be a cavity wall between us , their garage floor is about 500mm lower , however I can hear everything they say as though they are in the room , would an air gap and stud wall mounted on a rubber strip on floor and clad with 25 mm of plasterboard help In reducing the transmission of sound? I also in the fullness of time will turn the whole wall into shallow cupboard storage , is it worth it or would the results be negligible.? , I have had a look at accoustic sheets but they are out of budget sadly , I already have one layer of plasterboard that either need to be used or skipped , any advice ideas etc welcome,
Cheers
Chris

 

[winchman]

The acoustic cabinets I have seen around machinery are Steel sheet with holes in about 2mm Dia, heavy dense foam then a steel sheet they worked very weak, but I suspect there will be some science around it based or loudness and frequency of sound.

 

[colnerov]

For soundproofing you need density or mass, the sculptured foam are for acoustics not proofing. The Youtuber Gosforth handyman has done a number of videos on the subject, he's a drummer. One of his is about building a wall with separation mounts.

 

[rosinante]

For soundproofing you need density or mass, the sculptured foam are for acoustics not proofing. The Youtuber Gosforth handyman has done a number of videos on the subject, he's a drummer. One of his is about building a wall with separation mounts.

Would 25m m of plasterboard and an air gap help ?

 

[jimbo84]

In a terraced house I air gapped, studded, rockwooled, resonance barred and soundproof plasterboarded the party walls including between the joists in the ceiling. Made little to no difference, it was an expensive waste of time. The sound must have also been coming through the flanking walls or via some other path.

Soundproofing is complicated and needs to be done correctly with the correct, usually spendy, materials used in the right places.

 

[Gragson]

Son has been building recording / sound studios professionally for institutions and some big recording stars for 15 years.
Asked him about this before, and apart from the expensive sound proofing materials, it's also about layers and available space.
Of course you will get some reduction in sound passing through, but per Jimbo above, you may need to balance expectations versus the effort/cost.

 

[gaz1]

My garage has a party wall with the neighbours garage, according to drawings and measurement there should be a cavity wall between us , their garage floor is about 500mm lower , however I can hear everything they say as though they are in the room

if you can hear everything its no longer a cavity wall and that means someone next door has removed there wall at some point in time

in doing so they have tried to shift the boundary onto your brick wall meaning they are implying that your brick wall is the shared boundary wall

if there was a gap you wouldnt hear much but you will through a jointed roof if someone hasnt gone right up to the roof with the wall and there is gaps in the mortar

 

[bricol]

Is there an air gap at the top of the wall to the roof?

I was in a hotel in Jamestown NY and could hear the guy next door breathing as he slept! When he opened a soft drinks can, I could hear every sound from him doing it. Seemed to be a gap at the top of the wall.

In my mum's semi detached, you could hear next door arguing, their tv, the kids running upstairs (which were on the outer walls) and then fighting. Cavity wall between that seemed to do little noise blocking.

Does a garage need to be sound tight?

 

[Cobbler]

Is there an air gap at the top of the wall to the roof?

I was in a hotel in Jamestown NY and could hear the guy next door breathing as he slept! When he opened a soft drinks can, I could hear every sound from him doing it. Seemed to be a gap at the top of the wall.

In my mum's semi detached, you could hear next door arguing, their tv, the kids running upstairs (which were on the outer walls) and then fighting. Cavity wall between that seemed to do little noise blocking.

Does a garage need to be sound tight?

In older semi’s there wasn’t a cavity wall between, single brick only. In my in-laws 1964 semi you could everything….. literally everything they did next door. I don’t know what todays houses have now.

 

[sg66]

You need physical separation then different density material to achieve good results, as already said, flanking walls and ceiling and floor all have to be done too, you will make some difference but it's going to be expensive and it's cheaper turning a radio up.

 

[rosinante]

Further to my post , it looks like the joist ends of the neibours roof which is some 500 mm lower than mine penetrate at least halfway through the wall , there are cement patches showing 500mmor so below my roof joists, the plasterboard I have salvaged from a badly built loft room so my initial outlay is about 120 quids for 2x2 and fixings , I also have a few 8x2 sheets of chipboard flooring which could also go on the stud wall , I am hoping this will stop some of the noise, I don't use the garage in the evenings or at weekends for woodworking no noise, the last time I did a noisy job last summer the neighbour started banging bits of metal and then dragged out a motor bike and revved it up , this was all during the day before 4 pm and my noise lasted 15 mins max,

 

[gaz1]

id pull out a sound box made out of metal they can bang all they want after that and rev that motorbike engine up

a grinding sound box will soon drown out that sort of noise as it echoes for fun

Further to my post , it looks like the joist ends of the neighbours roof which is some 500 mm lower than mine penetrate at least halfway through the wall , there are cement patches showing 500mmor so below my roof joists,

thats confirmed then as its a shared boundary wall

i bet its a single wall only

just fill them with expanding foam and see what you get after that is my advice dont cut the foam insulation off though yourside as it soaks up water rather well

 

[Misterg]

I can hear everything they say as though they are in the room

IMHO the first step is to find and seal any air gaps in / above the wall.

Even a pencil sized hole will let a lot of sound through.