soundproofing for urban people

I found a YouTube video posted by Tone N.W. and it annotates the steps he took to soundproof his bedroom ceiling after his upstairs neighbor tore out her carpeting and began walking around on bare hardwood floors above his home. As you know, hardwood floors can be your worst enemy. A hardwood floor that's nailed directly onto a subfloor and then directly on top of wood joists is like a microphone into the rest of the building, and that impact noise travels through all the framing and right into the adjacent rooms (or apartments). He said that he learned everything he needed to know from this document from The Soundproofing Company in Michigan. Here's what they did: They tore off the original drywall ceiling. It looks like a previous owner had added cross strips of wood on the joists already, and they removed those too. (If you read his notes, it sounds like he regrets the extra labor in this step.) He and his wife cut drywall and added it to the upstairs subfloor in

I always get excited when I see new YouTube videos about installation practices. If you're interested in going the route of wall clips, here's a new video about using Green Glue clips before installing new drywall. (They recommend, of course, adding a second layer of drywall with Green Glue afterwards). You'll forfeit an additional 1.5 inches of room depth on each side if you use this method. It would be helpful if they supplied before and after specs for room acoustics!

How to apply Green Glue to drywall This YouTube video is from AcoustiGuard  and it demonstrates how to apply Green Glue to drywall. They make an important point: stagger the seams when you add your second layer of drywall (the one with Green Glue on the back of it). Also, as I've said before, if you can get your hands on some QuietRock 510 to use as your second layer of drywall, even better! Otherwise just use 5/8" sheetrock. But if you're not removing the existing sheetrock that's on your walls, you'll get better results if your second layer is soundproof drywall, with a layer of Green Glue in between.

This Green Glue Company video shows how to apply a layer of Green Glue to gypsum board in this video.

You can add mass to your existing walls. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I successfully muted some neighbor noise in my apartment building when I added a second layer of drywall on top of the original 1/2" drywall, with a coating of Green Glue in-between. This produced better results than simply replacing the original wall with QuietRock 525. I made the double-drywall solution even more successful by using QuietRock 510 as the second layer of drywall, with Green Glue in-between the two. Here's a diagram from Trademark Soundproofing  that demonstrates the STC results between different wall assemblies, including those with Green Glue.  Why do I think the Green Glue + layer of QuietRock was better than just replacing the original wall with QuietRock, right on the studs? My theory is that when you add QuietRock directly onto the wood framing, you're still not decoupling it from the structure. And therefore, impact noise and lower frequencies might still come throu

I took a photo recently that shows the cross-section comparison of QuietRock 525 next to QuietRock 510. QuietRock 525 (on the left) is the 5/8" sound-dampening drywall from Quiet Solution, which seems to be partially comprised of concrete. QuietRock 510 (on the right) is the 1/2" sound-dampening drywall from Quiet Solution, and seems to be comprised of two pieces of 1/4" gypsum, fused together with a membrane of other materials in between them. As I stated in my previous post, I think the most effective use of QuietRock products is to glue them with Green Glue on top of another layer of gypsum that's already affixed to the wall studs. Better still, insert insulation between the studs before you put another layer of sheetrock over the existing wall. After a month of curing, I can say that the combination of QuietRock 510 and Green Glue was the most effective of anything I've tried to date.

Two great products work great together. As I've mentioned before, I'm experimenting around with ways to reduce some of the noise problems in my apartment on a tight budget. I think I've found the best combination to date: adding a layer of QuietRock 510 over an existing layer of gypsum drywall with a layer of Green Glue inbetween. This was sort of the best of both worlds: taking a pre-made, sound-dampened drywall and then adding it over a powerful, viscous layer of glue....onto drywall that was already on the wall studs. No demo needed. In this project, I basically added two sound-dampening layers to the original 1950s drywall (one layer in the QuietRock and the other layer created by the Green Glue) to address " flanking noise ": feet, furniture, and shoes pounding on the bare floor of my downstairs neighbors' apartment. The amount of banging, bashing, and foot-stomping sounds coming from their very "wooden" apartment has been severe, and I&

This video demonstrates how effectively Green Glue dampens sound between two glued ceramic tiles. It's a much better demo than the one I made, and it really shows you how a few tubes of this simple dampening glue, placed between two hard surfaces, prevents a lot of vibration and noise from passing through. You really don't have to hire a construction crew to solve a lot of these problems anymore. These innovative products really do work. If you're not good with drywall, just hire someone who knows how to work with sheetrock -- but you might not need to tear off your existing wall. Several people have asked me lately how to add soundproofing to their apartment on a small budget. Gluing another piece of sheetrock onto their existing wall might do it -- but you must use Green Glue (not any kind of glue)!  

The Knock Test REPOSTED FROM MY PREVIOUS BLOG: By knocking on a wall,  you get some idea of how well dampened it might be for certain types of noise...or not. I made a very short video demonstration in my own home to compare the audible differences between making an impact noise on normal, uninsulated gypsum drywall and two alternatives. The first example shows how it sounds to knock on a hollow piece of 1/2" gypsum board. This type of drywall is typical for mid-century American homes.  Then compare it to: 1) a second layer of sheetrock glued on top of the original drywall with Green Glue in between the two layers -- no demolition required. 2) a layer of QuietRock 525 that replaced the existing layer of gypsum -- demolition required. Original 1/2" drywall was removed and fiberglass insulation was added before screwing the new QuietRock into the wall studs. One layer only.  (NOTE from 2023: Now I know better, and I would have decoupled the drywall from the wall studs instead o