Quietco was contacted to help a couple in Warwickshire soundproofing their linked detached house. “Mr & Mrs S” purchased a linked detached property, however since moving in they found that all was not as it seemed….
The problem
Before buying the house they had been told by the estate agents and advised by surveyors that the living room backed onto the neighbour’s garage. When Mr and Mrs S moved in, they could hear everything from next door through not only the living room wall that backed onto the garage downstairs, but they could also hear everything in their main bedroom upstairs. They realised immediately that their living room and dining room backed onto the neighbours’ new open plan kitchen, that still looked like a garage from outside.
The extent of the noise coming from next door
They could hear everything from the neighbours including shouting and screaming and foul language. Kitchen noises including pots pans in the sink and on the work surface, microwave and general living noise. The neighbours let the dog bark and slammed doors and it started to affect Mr and Mrs S’s sleep. They were getting woken up at all hours of the night by the unusual habits of the neighbours. They needed soundproofing but it was hard to comprehend how and why so much of this noise and clarity of speech was getting into Mr & Mrs S’s main bedroom upstairs.
How was so much neighbour noise getting in?
At first, Mr & Mrs S thought the noise was coming for the party wall and just wanted a soundproof wall system fixed to the living room and bedroom. On a call to the technical sales team, Mr & Mrs S realised that only 50% of the noise is coming from the party wall and the other 50% coming from flanking areas.
Let’s look at the main bedroom for example:
To the untrained eye, the window wall looks normal, one would not think half the noise is coming from this area. We opened it up and found a void leading right down to the neighbour’s property.
The noise from next door was:
Transmitting through the hollow voids and stud wood of the window wall
Transmitting up the living room wall downstairs
Transmitting through the hollow floor void and floor joists sat on the “party wall”
Transmitting through the stud frame
The stud frame separating the front and back bedroom was made up of paramount partition board, which is better described as a cardboard honeycomb sandwich between two layers of 9mm plasterboard. This product is found in a lot of houses built and renovated in the 1970s and is terrible for flanking transmission.
Mr & Mrs S not only had the separating wall between the bedrooms made of this paramount partition board but also the separating wall between the kitchen and living room and the front window wall.
With this particular problem, Quietco has a lot of experience, we know that treating the main bedroom wall alone was not going to solve the problem. The main bedroom wall was connected to the neighbours downstairs only and upstairs was an exterior wall with noise transmitting up this wall.
Main bedroom solution
Mr & Mrs S had only 95mm space available from the party wall in the bedroom before their windows making it an easy choice to opt for the best solution in the space available…the TPS70W at 90mm offering at least 70%+ improvement on noise. Mr & Mrs S were informed before any investment decision that the noise of the barking dog and slamming of the front door would still come through but would be massively reduced.
In the bedroom we installed TPSP floating floor along with TPS50C to the flanking window wall and TPS30W to the flanking wall separating the front and back bedroom. As this was a linked detached property there was little need to insulate the bedroom ceiling.
Living room solution
Our clients wanted a reduction in the living room, but the main focus was getting sleep by soundproofing the bedroom. So, the only solution was the TPS65W for the living room wall as we needed to sound deaden the living room wall below not just barrier the noise.
In the living room below we installed TPS65W to the conflicting party wall, TPS30W to each of the flanking walls perpendicular to the living room wall. We treated the living room ceiling with high density 44kg sound bloc 15 and the entire ceiling was insulated with 200mm rockwool (60kgs/m3).
Working together to minimise disruption
Mr and Mrs S have a few pets of their own that had just gone through the ordeal of moving, they knew they had to be very organised during the two-week project. Quietco put a schedule of works together to minimise disruption, but Mr & Mrs S kindly managed to clear both rooms which gave the installation team plenty of room and helped the project run smoothly.
The Result
“This has improved our way of life at home now and we are able to relax and not be disturbed all the time by the neighbours. We would definitely recommend this to anyone and we are really grateful to Jim and his team for helping us. Thanks guys”
In 10 days, the main bedroom and living room below had been soundproofed, plastered and all the skirting architrave and electrical all re-fitted…and the noise massively reduced, allowing Mr & Mrs S to sleep at night in their new home.
“We had the Quietco team in our house for 2 weeks installing soundproofing to the bedroom walls, floor and downstairs the living room walls and ceiling. Everything was left clean and tidy each day and we felt comfortable leaving them in the house for 2 weeks by themselves with no problems.”
Read in full what Mr and Mrs S said about their soundproofing experience.
In Summary
If you live in a linked detached property and are suffering from noisy neighbours, installing soundproofing can help you get the peace and quiet you deserve as long as it is installed correctly and not just on the “linked” wall.
If you are looking to buy a linked detached property pay close attention to what the linked room is used for next door and listen out for neighbour noise both upstairs and downstairs along flanking walls as you may need to consider soundproofing costs when negotiating your offer.
