wife has an office. stud walls, sheetrock each side. what can you put inside existing wall to quiet it down/ it has a suspended ceiling;
wall is open at the top.
what could i pour in?
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Replies
Concrete.
don't be silly....
pea gravel.
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
Sand would work better , less holes ,absorb more viberation . Just make sure it is dry. Wet sand or gravel is tough on a wall.
A number of discussions in the past on this. If you get lucky and the infamous search feature of Breaktime decides to find them for you, there is a wealth of information. The short answer depends upon how much remodeling you wish to do and what type of noise is causing the problem. You can completely isolate the area from surrounding noise sources or you can absorb noise from echoing within the room itself - or you can do both.
If the problem is the office just echos like a tomb, then simply hanging rugs or tapestries on the wall will quiet things down considerably. If the noise is coming from outside the room through the wall, then an extra layer of sheetrock on resilient channel helps. For fill in the wall, several types of sound deading materials are available. For a supplier point of view, see:
http://www.jm.com/Insulation/Marketing/AcousticCapabilities/build.asp
As is mentioned, all openings need to be sealed. Sound can be transmitted quite readily through framing, so if you want to really isolate the area, you need to space all surfaces away from framing with resilient materials.
thanks all
I was really interested in what the options were for putting something inside the wall, as the top is open above the suspended ceiling
Consider blowing cellulose.
If access is good enough, you might be able to fish FG batts down there.
Either would be a good start.
Low frequency noises will still resonate through the framing.
The open area between the 2 spaces (above the drop ceiling) is still going to allow a lot of noise transmission.
Your not going to be able to sound proof the wall, but my first thought was fishing insulation thru the top as previously posted, it will help deaden the sound. Also as mentioned, the gap from the top of your wall to the bottom of your floor joists could be sealed off, I used 2" thick polystyrene slabs cut to fit to isolated my office off from the rest of the basement. Make your door seal as tight as possible, and consider an inexpensive door sweep for the bottom of the door. This should help.
Solid core door.
Regards,
Tim
Remove sheetrock on one side. If board does not go to underside of floor above then extend rock to it. If the distance from top of framing to ceiling is less than two feet, just add rock without further framing. Caulk with acoustical sealant against ceiling /wall joint. Place sound proofing batts ( available at wallboard suppliers ) in cavity and rerock wall. Caulk at floor and ceiling joints with acoustical caulk.
This is a good way to help soundproof her office. There are other things that can be done too. If you are looking for an easy way to insulate the cavities you might try vermiculite. I do not know if vermiculite has any sound deading properties, it has been used for insulating wallboard that cannot be removed.One caution however, you must seal every switchbox, receptacle box etc. Holes in boxes that are not used, openings for cable etc must be tightly closed with caulk or tape. Vermiculite can be poured from the top of the wall if the there is room. I have seen 16 feet of wall framed with metal studs be insulated by pouring it from one spot in the middle of the length of the wall. It seeped thru the holes in the studs and leveled out in each bay to a height of about 6 1/2 feet.After the wall was done a telephone man came in and cut the rock for a box. You can't believe the amount of vermiculite that poured out. By the time we found out what happened the chairs in the room near the wall were almost buried.
I would do it the first way I described, the easy way could be a mistake.
mike
There is another thread of the exact same nature going on right now in one of the other topics. I suggested to the other guy that if he is going to use insulation to deaden sound to forget about any type of fiberglass batts and look for someone that installs rock wool. It's not the same rock wool from the 60's. I saw a demo on this stuff and it dampens sound unbelievable. The guy loosely packed some rock wool around a router that he had running in a pail, and you literally could not hear a thing! Also the stuff is fireproof. He melted a penny on top of it with a blowtorch. It's blown in like cellulose and price wise it is more money the cellulose but a little cheaper than Icyene.
You use the rock wool, and double up your sheet rock or use an isolated wall and you won't hear a thing.
I don't understand! I cut it twice and it's still too short!
There are special fiberglass batts that are listed as sound insulating batts. I have not personally looked at one, so I can only assume that they coat the fibers with something to absorb the sound or do something similar.
examples picked at random:
http://www.comfortech.biz/soundcontrol.html
http://www.pacorinc.com/fiberglass.html
http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/search?tbl=type&queryx=Insulation
Edited 11/25/2003 5:17:14 PM ET by CaseyR
Our bedroom backs up to our son's room, 3 1/2" wall with fiberglass in it - sound of him talking to friends came right through. I looked into the possibilities, and decided to put a layer of 1/2" Homasote on the wall, using construction adhesive, followed by drywall. Easy installation, quick tape job, and sound deadening is amazing. And Homasote is cheap. Resilient channel is expensive and hard to find here in CT.
You say the wall is open at the top? Like the drywall doesn't go all the way to the ceiling?
If that's the case, I'd guess that's where most of the sound is coming from. Your best bet might be to stick some insulation up there. Either put some sound batts between the studs, or tack some 1/2" foam board on the side of the studs above the dropped ceiling.
If that didn't do enough, I supose you could try to slide some 3 1/2" batts down between the studs. Maybe rip one layer off the face so they'd slide down easier.
Actual size *doesn't* matter. It's how big you can convince her it is that matters.
Batts are useless without something solid - much like they're useless thermally if wind can blow through. First, you've got to close the gaping hole between top of wall & the underside of whatever is above - paying attention to all penetrations (seal somehow).
Once that is done, you should evaluate how it sounds - then proceed to stripping one side of sheetrock as suggested above to add insulation/resilient channels if it's still real noisy. Resilient channels aren't necessary, just run 1x2 strapping perpendicular to the studs - this will reduce the continuous sound transmission surface from the entire height of the every stud to just the points where the studs cross the strapping.
JMHO, and I've been wrong before