Noise Rated Gyprock

[the_captain]

Hello Rennovators!!!!!!!!

I have a townhouse that shares a "Party Wall" with another townhouse, both townhouses have wooden floors on the bottom level and wooden stair cases.

Our townhouse currently has no furniture in it......nothing nada....as we are yet to move in. It doesn't even have insulation in the roof!!!

The problem we have is that we can hear the neighbours clumping about on their wooden floor. We are assuming that this will get better once our place has some soft furnishings and some roof insulation, however I was wondering what your thoughts are on noise rated gyprock. I am looking into having it put up upstairs and downstairs on the party wall.

Does it work, how effective is it, have you used it, is it worth it?

Thanks in advance

 

[adaran01]

Hi
Get the latest home handyman magazine, from memory it has a full page ad on noise rated gyprock with noise levels etc
Regards Adam

 

[whitt]

I am in the process of constructing a place in Nz and rang Gib living solutions ( or Winstone wallboards in NZ).they sent out a nosie control book free and are willing to help over the phone.
Spoke to there engineers and they said developers usually go for minimum council noise figures. Where as it cost hardly anything else during building to get get noise control.
The book was great fairly thick and showed heaps of methods of noise control. maybe look them up if they are in Oz and get the book and some free advice.
heres there website also.
www.gib.co.nz
can't tell you how good it is yet Gib goes up my place next week.

edited later" checked out website , it has a bit of info and a email technical help service too. drop them a line and see what they come up with. it may be as easy as putting an extra layer of noise gib up ( not sure ) the engineer that helped me over the phone was good"

 

[Gill Bates]

im not a accoustical engineer, but

There are 2 types of noise.

1) air bourne noise
and
2) structure bourne noise or impact noise - something physcially hits part of the building, (like footsteps ) the building vibrates and noise appears in nearby rooms. - it is more difficult to reduce than airbourne noise. As the frequency of a sound gets lower , it is much more difficult to attenuate. Footsteps may have components round 30Hz , be aware that graphs shown in product litrature often stop at 125Hz

person next door walks hard, their floor vibrates, what u hear is the result of the vibrations travelling in to your property thru the building physcial structure . How this happens depends on building construction. You may put gyprock on the party walls , but impact sound transmission will still be in rest of structure ( like your floor) , so u may be disapointed with the results.

One option is to buy a floating timber floor for the neighbours - this would stop the impact sound at the source . Look at bhg www site for an example of this - expensive yes.

Look for Impact or IIC in mentioned documents.
A lot of the diagrams and figures in mentioned doc are refering to airbourne (like traffic) noise

having lots of soft material in a room stops noise reflections - ie sound DECAYS QUICKER. but sound that reaches u directly (like from a vibrating surface floor/wall/ceiling etc ) will be just as loud.

Attention to installation detail is important.


see "structureborne sound" on
http://www.environmental.co.uk/pages/solutions.html
also

http://ourhouse.ninemsn.com.au/ourhouse/factsheets/db/makeovers/05/509.asp


the nz website mentioned also talks about structural noise in the "definations" doc

 

[Spleaver]

Hello Cap,

You could contact 'Boral' or look for there web site. They have heaps of info on sound insulation.

It come down to two types of noise. Airborne and Structureborne noise as Gill Bates said.

Airbourne needs thickness or density to reduce it, ie sound ckeck, sound stop or many layers of normal plasterboard. This, when used with Noise control batts, will work well. Make sure you seal joints and the gaps around the edges well as this makes a big difference. Refer Boral details.

Structureborne needs seperation to stop the noise being passed on to the next element. This includes furring channels to provide an air gap and sometime for best effect, rubber furring channel clip/mount. Again should be used with Noise control batts.

Hope this helps, good luck.

 

[whitt]

update to my party wall between my house and monr dwelling unit:

noise level reduction was acheived by use of a method in the Gib noise control book.

I had a double timber frame wall with about 150mm gap between. each wall was then layered with 2 12mm sheets of noise control and insulation batts. except in the bathrooms which had 1 layer of 12mm noise and 1 layer aqualine. sealed around outside and penetrations with firesealant.
This gives us a 90min fire rating which is heaps.

As for noise there is no problem with airbourne although I probably would have put in acoustic/ noise batts incase next time.
We do however get slight structual noise at times. I guess as the houses are still joined by outside framing and roof battens we will get it. it is however only very minor and in 6 months have heard it only on a few occasions. mainly when the washing wachine( very old type) next door is on full spin.

Not sure what results i would have got had I built a brick party wall.

anyhow I am happy with results.