Soundproofing issue

bizgirl

Hi all,

I currently have an old gas fire in the lounge of my Victorian terraced cottage that I never use. I am considering removing it to create an open fire in the space instead.

At the moment there's a single piece of plywood behind the gas fire which entirely blocks the flue (with a letter box-sized hole in it to let the gas up the chimney). It's about 1.5cm thick. When I look through the hole in the plywood I can see the bricks of the flue/wall behind.

If I install an open fire I will obviously have to remove the plywood to create a big enough opening for my new grate and to position it at the bottom of the flue.

However, I share a chimney stack with next door and I'm concerned that if I remove the gas fire and plywood, it could reduce sound insulation between our two houses and that I'll suddenly be able to hear noise from next door's lounge.

At the moment I can't hear any noise at all from next door (apart from when they very occasionally play music), which is quite nice - so I wouldn't want to jeopardise that.

My questions are therefore:

1) Do you think the gas fire and plywood barrier are currently doing much to stifle any noise from next door - or would they not make much difference if the sound insulation was generally poor? There are alcoves with shelves either side of the fire and we don't hear anything through those.

2) Will removing the gas fire and plywood mean that noise from next door could suddenly become an issue for me and my neighbours?

Any advice people could give would be much appreciated! :beer:

Davesnave

The chimneys will not be joined, so if you cannot hear anything significant through the party wall alcoves, removing the fire and the plywood probably won't make a scrap of difference regarding sound transfer.

bizgirl

That's reassuring - thanks Dave!