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Wondering how effective different soundproofing solutions will be?

Sometimes it is easier to answer that question with the results that others have achieved

We asked clients to 1) Outline the problem? 2) Comment on ease of fitting? 3) Did it solve the problem?

We have divided our Case Histories into Party Walls , Ceilings, Floors

Party walls - Solution 52mm Sound stop panels

CASE 1- Emma ( 30's house, brick party wall)

1) Outline the problem?

"Noisy neighbours - noise varied from full on parties to general noise, tv, coughing, talking etc"

2) Ease of fitting?

"Very straightforward as it is essentially just gluing boards to the wall. "

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"Background noise really reduced - you have to press your ear against the wall to hear anything! It's great to have some privacy!"

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CASE 2- Heather (Victorian Build)

1) Outline the problem?

"I live next door to a very nice young family, unfortunately they have a nocturnal two year old who kept me awake as well as his harrassed parents.  I didn't blame anyone, its just normal family life, but I needed to get some sleep at night.I found this web site and as the cost was affordable I decided it was worth a try.."

2) Ease of fitting?

" I had the bedroom room replastered at the same time as the fitment of the boards to the party wall, the boards were fitted and the room replastered all in one day and as I had all the materials, the cost was just the days labour"

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"The improvement is immense, I can sometimes hear the family faintly if I am awake, but I am never woken by them now. At the moment I have bought the boards to do the party wall in the living area and in time I am also going to 'sound stop' the other party walls in the house.."

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CASE 3- Gary Albian ( Victorian terrace, South London)

1) Outline the problem?

" We could hear the people next door talking loudly and shouting at each other, it was loud enough to hear above the sound of our TV with the volume turned up."

2) Ease of fitting?

"I found it very easy to fit the boards,and could not think of anything to make it easier."

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"Now after fitting the boards it has made a dramatic difference it is much better, we can sometimes hear something but it is mainly a distant muffled sound, I would say an 90% improvement and would use the same method again."

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CASE 4- Sean, Oxfordshire (60’s house, brick party wall)

1) Outline the problem?

"Normal daily noise of people next door could be clearly heard in our lounge. "

2) Ease of fitting?

"Simple to use! my wife and I soundproofed the wall in one evening."

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"No longer hear talking, laughing or the television from next door, This product has exceeded our expectations!"

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CASE 5- Mr. and Mrs. Baird (Victorian Build)

1) Outline the problem?

"Very noisy neighbours – loud music late at night that affect our sleep."

2) Ease of fitting?

"Very easy to cut, handle and fit. All materials were of good quality"

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"Yes it did. Made an enormous difference and glad we went for the thicker panels. Will certainly be in touch again if I decide to soundproof other areas of our party wall in our lounge and dining room."

Ceilings: Resilient Bars acoustic plasterboard and acoustic mineral wool

Case 1- Marcus Clapham South London ( Bedroom within a Victorian conversion)

1) Outline the problem

"Hi there, just been going through some old flagged messages in the inbox and been reminded i never let you know what i thought about the results of the suspended ceiling you advised and supplied the materials for during the refurbishment of my ground floor flat in Clapham back in April Initially the master bedroom was so noisy (a shared bedroom of teenage hip-hop fans directly upstairs; lyrics of their music easily discernible) that I was considering selling the flat as soon as the other refurbishment work was done, but decided to give the Soundstop advice and materials a try before giving up."

2) Ease of fitting

"The new ceiling replaced the existing plasterboard and took my builders a day and a bit to complete."

3) End Result

"Afterwards, to be honest to start with it was so quiet I just thought they'd gone out or stopped using the room (and didn't want to tempt fate by admitting it was working so well!) , but 6 months on I still haven't heard more than the most distant murmur so I'm prepared to say it's worked much better than I could have imagined. We can sometimes still hear them shouting (now mainly through the outside window I think) but the baselines and gangster rap are gone. I wish I could have afforded to do the whole flat, but until that point, the bedroom is a sanctuary!As promised, feel free to lift bits from this for your website"

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Case 2 - Tim Felmingham Surrey ( Garage conversion to music practice hall)

1) Outline the problem?

"Converting brick-built garage (cavity wall) to make drum practice room. Objective was not perfect soundproofing but simply that sound would not intrude into the neighbours houses. I accepted that if they stood outside, they would be able to hear something but I didn’t want them to hear anything when inside. This required a level of soundproofing slightly better than our house."

2) Ease of fitting ( whether you found it hard/ easy to do the job)

"Made a proper job of the ceiling using resilient bars, 100mm Acoustic mineral Wool and acoustic plasterboard. Just battened the walls and fixed normal plasterboard straight to the battens as they were cavity brick walls and already quite heavy duty. Paid a lot of attention to sealing all the gaps everywhere. Resilient bars and AMW were easy to work with. Heavy acoustic plasterboard was not! Hired machine from HSS to hold boards up on the ceiling whilst I screwed them up and this made it an easy one man job."

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"The soundproofing of the structure is very good (especially the roof which is amazing) but some sound leaks through the double-glazed windows and door. However the ceiling performs very well and the result meets the design goals."

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Case 3 - Grays Gym, St Johns Wood Road, London

1) Outline the Problem

"We had a room in the gym we wanted to use as a physiotherapy and massage room. The problem was we are below Next, the room was essentially un-usable due to thunderous footfall and the noise of customers in the shop above. We also had a problem with noise from ducts and a party wall to the side."

2) Ease of fitting

"We decided to go for an independent ceiling then resilient bars and acoustic mineral wool. We insulated the ducts with an acoustic duct wrap, and the wall with resilient bars and acoustic plasterboard. Although it looked a lot of stuff it was easy to fit, and our builder had no problems with the instructions."

3) Did it solve the problem

"The result was great it surpassed our expectations as the noise was really bad before. We now use the room for massage and other treatments. Come and see for yourself , you can have a free treatment on us!"

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Case 4 - Jason, West London ( Victorian conversion)

1) Outline the Problem

"The owner of the flat above mine had recently laid parquet flooring above my bedroom and I could hear everything going in their living room; conversation, music, any time anyone walked across the floor etc. It was waking me up every morning and preventing me from going to sleep at night."

2) Ease of fitting ( whether you found it hard/ easy to do the job)

"I got some very reliable and good builders I know to fix it for me to ensure the job was done properly. They did not have a problem fitting it and only took 3 days, mainly due to the very awkward shape of the room and the amount of debris contained between the floor boards."

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"I am happy with the end result. It was explained to me that it would not completely remove the impact sound before I began but the airborne sound would be removed which is exactly the situation now. I can still hear the noise of people walking over the floor, but it is dramatically reduced! I can not hear conversation anymore and can only hear the music when they have it up full volume (although I think this is more to do with the fact they have the windows open as well). Overall I am very happy and can now sleep, thank you."

Ceiling Solution 2 - Hanger Ceiling

Case 1 - Neville C ( Victorian conversion flat- retained original ceiling)

1) Outline the problem?

"A lot of noise permeated down to us from above particularly footfall and TV noise."

2) Ease of fitting?

". We installed acoustic hangers with 50mm square battens infilled with 50mm mineralwool slabs and two layers of 12.5mm plasterboard. We didn't use the 19mm for space reason but the soundproofing still seems very effective. To do my lounge (about 5m x 4.5m) took two of us (experienced amateur DIY'ers) four days, a bit longer than predicted admittedly and we worked pretty hard, but we got there in the end"

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

Floor Solution 4 - Underfloor Hanger Floor

Case 4 - Fiona, West London ( Victorian conversion- renovating old timber floor)

1) Outline the problem?

"Having removed a wall between my kitchen and lounge to create a large open plan living area in my 1/F flat, I removed the existing floor surface (lino and carpet) with the intention of sanding back the existing wooden flooring.  With a neighbour living below me, installing sound proofing was essential as the noise transference between both flats was significant.  I researched sound proofing systems on the web and having found SoundStop's website, sought advice.   ."

2) Ease of fitting?

"I opted for solution 4 for which allowed me to retain my existing floors and ensure sound transference between flat was minimised as much as possible.  SoundStop were brilliant at providing technical advice both prior to purchase and during installation of the system.  This proved invaluable to both myself (the DIY novice!) and my builder.  Installation was relatively straight forward although lifting the existing boards & removing hundreds of old floor tacks proved very time consuming!"

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

More 52mm SoundStop case studies

CASE 6- Shirley and Robert (1970s Semi detached Bungalow)

1) Outline the problem?

"Our problem is a very deaf neighbour, resulting in us suffering, over a long period of time, from having to listen to the sound of high volume TV programmes, loud voices and banging of internal doors etc through the brick party walls of the adjoining property. We used to have to watch the same TV programme as our neighbour as we could view our mute set and listen easily to the sound from next door !!."

2) Ease of fitting?

"My husband and his brother (both approaching their 70s in age) fitted the recesses of the adjoining wall with resilient bars, acoustic wool and acoustic plasterboard, and the chimney wall with 52mm soundstop panels. The whole job took two days and both men found the materials easy to work with and the instructions easy to follow."

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"What an amazing difference this has made!!  I can now sit in my own lounge and read a newspaper or watch TV in peace, something I haven't been able to do for over 8 years. We no longer know which programme our neighbours are watching or if they have friends or relatives visiting and we feel so relieved to have our lives back again. Now and again there is a slightly muffled TV sound penetrating through to our side of the wall but this is completely bearable and nothing at all like the mental torture we have suffered previously."

CASE 7- Ivan D (1910 Terrace)

1) Outline the problem?

"We live in a 1910 terrace. In the living room we could easily hear television - could tell what was being watched ! Voices, coughing etc - even over the noise of our own television!."

2) Ease of fitting?

"I would say it was straightforward - though obviously quite physical and was glad of an extra pair of hands to help. Perhaps if you had no d.i.y experience you may find it more difficult."

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"Huge improvement.Can now enjoy that room without giving any thought to next door.If you press your ear to the wall it is sometimes just possible to hear - but only just. Occasionally if very loud, bass heavy music is played it can be heard."

CASE 8- Simon Walker, Portland (1910 Terrace)

1) Outline the problem?

"My party wall had just as well not been there. I could hear my neighbours and their children whenever they raised their voice. They didn’t need to shout to be heard. The only problem with their television was we couldn’t see the picture otherwise I could have sold my T.V .It was becoming really annoying especially at weekends. We could hear almost everything & I mean everything especially at night !!

2) Ease of fitting?

3) The end result, did it cope with the problem/ what can you hear now?

"The results are outstanding. There is no way I’m letting my neighbour know I’ve put it up because they will probably be even noisier than before. I can only hear their television when they blast it, plus you can hear it louder from outside the house now! Their everyday noise is virtually none existent unless you turn off the TV and put your ear to the wall, even then it’s a quiet mumble. Even at night the noise is really, really difficult to hear, you have to try and hear them now!!
 A brilliant product with brilliant results and easy to fit .Believe me it works!!!"