Soundproof party wall?

[j.o.s.h.1408]

I came across https://soundstop.co.uk/pages/wall-s...fing-solutions which offers a wide range of solutions with some adding thickness the size of a coke can! and wondering if its worth soundproofing my party wall downstairs on my living and dining room.

The living and dining room are joined together as the wall between them does not exist and i have two chimney breast situated in the middle of each room.

It is a semi detached 1930's house and the part i wanna sound proof is the party wall.

All the walls except the chimney breast. Or does the chimney breast needs to have sound proofing too?

This is so i can watch TV on my AV setup that has 5.1 surround sound speakers without disturbing neighbours .

FYI i can hear them speak, well mainly the husband as he does speak quite loud but can hear mumbling of his voice if its quiet in the room i am in.

Thoughts? Worth doing? My missus thinks its a waste of money especially thinking that i should also soundproof the chimney breast but the videos i have seen of people doing it, seems to indicate that they dont do that part.

Also, will i be able to still hang shelves etc on the party wall if its backed by a soundproof wall?

[Rob_B]

Doesn't look cheap, and depends on how much internal space you want to lose from that wall. Look into a stud wall, fill with soundproofing insulation then cover with something like Gyproc SoundBloc? It's a DIY job

Leaving the chimney open will mean some sound will come through but it depends on how it's setup and if they are open or not.

Using traditional stud wall/Plasterboard you'll be able to hang whatever you would on a 'normal' Plasterboard wall.
Also I'm a bit confused, are these both your walls just between rooms or a shared wall with a neighbour ? And you mention 'the husband'?

Edit: looking at it, some 'solutions' are just rubber mats and acoustic Plasterboard, I inverting that's a cheap job if you look on ebay etc and although not the best solution should make a difference

[Saracen999]

Tricky. I think part of being a good neighbour is trying to avoid anything with an unreasonably adverse effet on a neighbour's quiet enjoyment of their own home. I'v never had a real problem with music or TV surround sound with my neighbours but some years back, I did have a major headache with a couple of dogs next door had.

Yes, dogs bark. To a point, it's inevitable. But they had two Yorkshire Terriers and one of them had a real problem keeping his damn yap shut. If there was an Olympic yapping event, he'd have been a dead cert for a Gold. The really noisy one would also set the other one off.

And by noisy, it ONLY occurred when my neighbours were out and the dogs were left alone .... which was pretty much all day, most week days. It also periodically happened in the evening, up to about 1:30AM when they went out for the evening.

By "noisy", I mean excessive barking, but that wasn't tthe worst of it. The worst was that when that pair of litle bleeps weren't barking, when were bleeping howling. And it was near continuous, either barking or howling, for hour after hour, month after month. On the average day when nobody was home next door for about 8 hours, there was either barking or howling for, on average (I took detailed notes, and recordings) for at least 6.5 hours and often, over hours.

Over quite along time, I got more and more wound up by those damn dogs, and this went on for several years. i won't describe some of the ideas I wondered if I could get away with, seeing as te neighbours had zero interest in doing anything themselves, but some of them, had I actually done more than think about it, would probably have got me a lengthy prison sentence if I'd actually done anything .... and got caught. No, I'm not kidding.

So .... if you plan on loud music or TV, a lot, be prepared to face the possbility that relations with neighbours could go seriously downhill if it's too much, too often. A lot depends (IMHO) in how much your sound bothers them, how badly, for how long, and how often.

Active measures to prevent bad relations, costly or otherwise, might be an, excse pun, sound investment.


The eventual outcome with the dogs? Oh yeah. The older one died (no, nothing I did) and the younger was FAR quieter on his own. Then they moved house.

[b0redom]

We recently had our house gutted and redecorated. We had acoustic dampening plasterboard fitted as part of that. Anecdotally it's made quite a big difference, but you'd still not be able to go bonkers with the home cinema stuff. If I want to watch something REALLY loud I tend to wait until they go out.