Sound-proofing Party Wall

Dancook

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More like sound dampening..

Our neighbours have only ever once complained about the home-cinema noise, when we had the subwoofer on watching pitch perfect and there was lots of music bass / constant beats. We're happy to not use the big-ass subwoofer and I'm satisfied with the low frequencies offered by the in-wall speakers.

So what I'm planning is more for peace of mind + my wife likes this idea...

The idea is to build a floor to ceiling book shelf, but only approximately 2.2 metres wide - because I have a AV shelf stack which I cannot move across as it'd block the rear right speaker. Also there are sockets behind it with speaker/hdmi ports.

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You can give heavy but thin acoustic material, can't remember the name of it - but maybe I can line the back of a book shelf unit with it for even more acoustic dampening. The only thing is this shelf would cover just 2/3rds of the wall, would this have a significant impact?

an alternative would be try to incorporate the AV stack into the bookshelf unit.

and one other thought, is this all too heavy for engineered wood flooring with electric underfloor heating

front of room speaker layout.

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The short answer is it won't do much at all to reduce noise transmission. It takes complete coverage, decoupling from the adjacent wall and a fair amount of mass to make a noticeable difference
 
Is that outcropping a chimney? If it is that may be the problem. If not how far along the wall is adjoining the neighbours. If all the way, the only way is to soundproof the whole wall. The bookcase method would only dampen the sound if the books fit snuggly into the shelf with very little area for air/sound to travel through to the wall behind. Yet again it would have to cover the entire adjoining wall with the neighbour.
 
Is that outcropping a chimney? If it is that may be the problem. If not how far along the wall is adjoining the neighbours. If all the way, the only way is to soundproof the whole wall. The bookcase method would only dampen the sound if the books fit snuggly into the shelf with very little area for air/sound to travel through to the wall behind. Yet again it would have to cover the entire adjoining wall with the neighbour.

The neighbouring wall is the entire 3m section of the wall, which is between the surround-right and rear-right speaker in a 7m+ long room.

This shows the original chimney which was removed as it was not load bearing.

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I could instead just consider acoustic plasticboard and bring the wall out a little - but i only have 10cm to work with if I keep the AV Rack as it is and move it tight to the rear right speaker.

speaker placements from early model

speaker_placement_4.jpg
 
The short answer is it won't do much at all to reduce noise transmission. It takes complete coverage, decoupling from the adjacent wall and a fair amount of mass to make a noticeable difference

Thanks, could instead build the wall out 10cm without causing disruption to the AVRack and sockets.

I suppose I should ask next door if I can go and listen to what volume is noticeable.
 
Party walls are a nightmare, especially where a chimney is involved. Check when you go around that your neighbour doesn't still have one on his side of the wall. The back of a chimney usually has single brick construction. I used to have a fireplace in my old bedroom and I could hear everything in my neighbour's bedroom! And I mean everything....
 
Stud wall
25mm airgap
100 rw3
Roof lat the vertical leave 25mm void
Blue board x 2 lapped joints
Acostic seal all joints.
Skim

Works a treat.
 
The short answer is it won't do much at all to reduce noise transmission. It takes complete coverage, decoupling from the adjacent wall and a fair amount of mass to make a noticeable difference
Is decoupling required if you are only looking to stop talking from coming though? I can hear the neighbours talking on the phone through one of the walls and was hoping I could just add a load of additional mass to it
 
Is decoupling required if you are only looking to stop talking from coming though? I can hear the neighbours talking on the phone through one of the walls and was hoping I could just add a load of additional mass to it
Voice frequencies are the easiest to attenuate. If they are talking at a normal level it's unusual to be able to hear it. You could have an air path allowing flanking. Adding another layer of sheetrock making sure there is no air path could help but a small air gap would make the biggest improvement
 

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