4 ms·
Doubling drywall, making walls 2x6 instead of 2x4, and using insulation isn't prohibitively expensive. Of course the cheapest thing of all is making a building
by bluthru 10y ago
Doubling drywall, making walls 2x6 instead of 2x4, and using insulation isn't prohibitively expensive.
Of course the cheapest thing of all is making a building out of concrete or masonry that can last for over a century and has inherently great noise dampening.
- mjevans 10y agoI'll try to draw with text and then explain. _________ [S [I] S] [S [I] S] [S [I] S] [S [I] S] [S [I] S] ========= For S and I: use 'normal' wood, or if using metal mandate expanding spray-foam insulation (to dampen vibrations). I MUST be insulated (should be fire code, as well as noise and common sense code). The brackets are 'dry wall' but mandate the higher quality stuff that won't support mold growth. Yes, there's an inner gap between the outer walls, and the floor/ceiling have a bit of extra padding of some structured engineering product that dampens vibrations. The outer walls have studding to allow for cords and in-wall plumbing. Do NOT run plumbing or put any shelving/fixtures on walls adjacent to another unit. I haven't seen, or figured out my self, how to make the vertical noise isolation equally effective. I suspect a dedicated between floor crawlspace would be effective (but raise costs notably). The core-wall approach CAN lower costs since it allows for a structural core with studs as dense as desired and no cut-outs.
- rsync 10y ago"I haven't seen, or figured out my self, how to make the vertical noise isolation equally effective." 1/2 layer of cork underneath the top layer of flooring is inexpensive and effective for noise isolation ...
- Arizhel 10y agoYou'll need some kind of artificial "cork". Real cork is in short supply and very expensive. Most wine bottles these days have dumped real corks and switched to fake ones, or have just gone to screw caps (which is really better anyway; corks are an anachronism and inferior in every way to a screw cap).
- cauterized 10y agoAs someone who grew up in an apartment building with concrete floors, I assure you that concrete is useless for internal noise dampening.
- exodust 10y agoConcrete is much better at noise insulation than dry wall and timber flooring.
- cauterized 10y agoPlaster and timber flooring isn't so bad. Brick is also better than concrete. More rigid materials tend to transmit sound better.
- exodust 10y agoPlaster walls need to be the double-thickness type, AND have sound-proofing material between each wall. I've suffered a few piss-weak plaster walls in my time, thin enough to punch a hole through with my fist and strangle neighbour on the other side (never actioned). Once I lived on the bottom apartment in a two storey apartment block. The floor boards were a nightmare and eventually we had to move. Upstairs footsteps across the floor were loud enough to wake us up, and I don't just mean squeaky boards, but just the thumping knocking sound resonation. Sometimes I could make out the words being said in their conversations. Never again.
- cauterized 10y agoDefinitely depends on the construction type. I will say that floor-to-floor noise transmission in a 19thC brownstone is a tiny fraction of what it is in a mid-20th-C apartment block. In the latter, you can hear people moving furniture or turning on the shower multiple floors away on the far side of the building.
- Johnny555 10y agoAs someone that's lived both in a concrete 10 story "high rise" apartment building as well as a 3 story wood-framed apartment building, concrete is far superior for noise dampening as wood. In the concrete building, we could never hear neighbors above of below us, in the wood framed building, we could hear foot steps and even voices. Our upstairs neighbor had a squeaky bed and we could clearly hear the bed every time they were intimate.