Soundproofing your house - done this or know of anyone who has?

JustAnotherSaver

Tippytoes said:

We had a similar problem and, for the sake of our sanity, ended up having to move house.  Very sorry for your situation.  I hope you get the peace and quiet you deserve.

I was having a look at moving house this week. It's not something that's ever crossed my mind as my aim was to buy a house i'd be happy staying in.

It said the average cost of moving was £8k. That was just one article. £8k is quite a hit. I don't think the valuation of our house has changed massively since we bought it 7 years ago and to go cheaper you're looking at sharing the street with people who really would be the definition of the Jeremy Kyle show.

knightstyle said:

We are currently moving from our 2006 built town house as we cannot stand the noise etc. any longer.  Even if you sound proof the house you will still get noise from their windows when you open yours so will need ventilation as well as the sound proofing.

Interesting. I've read conflicting things about modern housing. Some saying it's fantastic and not a peep, others saying it's been made out of tracing paper. Some saying good build quality, others saying the house is falling apart.

Exterior noise while annoying is just that to us - it's just a bit annoying, but acceptable since we live on a street. What we can't accept is when sleep starts suffering due to noise.

RelievedSheff

I think the build quality of new builds varies so much from developer to developer and even between developers different developments that you can't say that all are good or all are bad.

We moved into a new build last year and we love it. It feels a much more solid house than our previous 1930's semi. We were lucky and could afford a detached property. We were just not willing to risk having noise from adjoining neighbours again.

Speaking to the people who have semi's here though they don't seem to suffer with noise transmission between properties.

Exterior noise well you will get that anywhere. It is a very quiet estate here but you still get the noise from the animals in the woods and fields at night and at certain times of day the faint hum of the A road across the fields. Because it is so quiet though any noise at night seems to be amplified.

JustAnotherSaver

That's something that i miss from when i 'lived at home'. Literally the only noises you would hear in the house (house was built either 1895 or 1905, can't remember which) were lorries that'd go by on the road, boats on the canal or erm well yeah that was it basically.

It wasn't all good though. The house suffers hellishly from damp issues.

dlmcr

Not sure about the accuracy about some of the comments on this thread. Soundproofing is as expensive as you want to make it when you have limited understanding of what you are doing or what you are trying to achieve.

You don't need an expensive consultation from a company offering soundproofing solutions that will rely on their customers not understanding much about soundproofing products or how they are supposed to work. I would say it is an unregulated industry much like the ubiquitous "cavity wall" insulation companies that are out there...

Watch some youtube videos about soundproofing, the products, techniques, what works,. what doesn't etc

The biggest cause of soundproofing failure is not installing it properly or not installing the right combination of products..

Sound will still come in through the weak points, eg gaps that are not filled in. The kind of sound determines what you need to use, eg bassy sound has to be intercepted in a different way to higher pitch sound.

Look underneath your floorboards, you will need to use suitable material to ensure sound does not travel across joists if they are connected to party wall.

Think about your ceiling (and loft as well) does it need soundproofing,

Sound travels in very funny ways that you would not expect you you really need to understand how and why you are hearing unwanted sound because that will help you to alleviate the problem.

Properly installed soundproofing can help a lot but probably not completely eliminate all sound.

The idea of doing one room to see how it can help is a good one.

It is not necessarily correct to say that you "lose loads of space", depending on what you are trying to achieve you would lose 2 - 6 inches off a wall. Depending on a room size this may or may not be practical but I would say 2 inches is not a huge amount of loss.

There is no need to spend a fortune in soundproofing, if you DIY it the materials can be bought quite reasonably.

Soundproofing if you are able to do it effectively is without doubt a lot cheaper than moving house.

Noise from windows etc you will get in a detached house and has nothing to do with soundproofing.

At the end of the day if you want silence you will need to live somewhere with no near neighbours, a luxury few of us can afford.

RelievedSheff

The cost of soundproofing our old 1930's semi would have far outweighed our costs in moving. The house was not worth enough to warrant spending what it would have cost to soundproof the party wall, floors and ceilings in the lounge/diner, main bedroom, large under floor void and roof space.

There were so many inherent construction "faults and flaws" with the building that it just wasn't worth the cost of "fixing" the problems that caused the sound transmission.