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Hi, I am just looking for some advice and wanted to see if anyone had any success in soundproofing their house from neighbours in a Semi Detached house. I am not the most savvy at Construction and Building work so I’ll try put as much detail as I can! I have recently moved into a Semi detached property and am experiencing a lot of intrusive noise from our neighbours. Couple with 3 young kids who run around and scream like maniacs. Constantly hear them running up and down their stairs and on the landing. Can also hear everything the family do in their kitchen as it backs onto our lounge. (Cupboards closing, appliances, switches/sockets being used). Can hear all of this clear as day as if it’s a hollow wall separating us. Can also hear them walking up and down the stairs and slamming doors. (Hard to tell whether they are slamming and stomping or if it’s just poor insulation or work between the properties). We have a breeze-block party wall with a layer of plasterboard on our side which I believe is Dot and Dab. Downstairs we have a lounge and kitchen along the party wall with the stairs going up through the middle separating the two. Then upstairs we have our landing and two bedrooms along the party wall. So currently we are going to look at getting the lounge, bedrooms and landing done first and then potentially the kitchen in the future when we get a new kitchen! I am in the process of looking for quotes for this. I want to get the best soundproofing possible on our party walls to block out noise this way. Does anyone know what the best soundproofing method would be to block out the noise coming from them stomping up the stairs and upstairs rooms, as this is the main contributor. Would it be a case of soundproofing under our upstairs floor boards between joists? Want to get professionals in to sort this properly so am happy to pay for the best solution possible. Just wanted to know if anyone has been in a similar situation before and had soundproofing installed and if had much joy? Any information would be appreciated! Thanks, Jack

Hi All, Got a question I'm struggling to find an answer too... I have a flat roof (warm construction) so all the insulation is on top of joists/rafters (never know which term to use for flat roofs!). The space under the flat roof is divided into a 2 rooms by a timber stud wall. As I understand things the space between the joists is left as a void as insulation is above this so to avoid condensation issues. One of these rooms is our utility room with washing machine/tumber drier in it, which seem to be on almost constantly! The question I have is can I pack out the void with acoustic insulation above where the stud wall meets the ceiling? I'm insulating the wall but am concerned that at the ceiling there's nothing to stop the sound travelling between rooms over the wall other than plaster board. We've switched some rooms around and the room next to the laundry is now going to be my office so want it as sound proofed as possible. For info the stud wall, whilst running parallel to joists doesn't come up directly under a joist so has a number of noggins running perpendicular to it that it is going use as fixing points. Joists are at 400mm centres. What I was think was just filling that space between these 2 joists with acoustic insulation so that there is some soundproofing above and to either side in the ceiling above the stud wall. Anyone see any issue with this? and should I leave air gap above the insulation or completely fill void (joists 200mm deep)? Thanks A.

As I work my way through the next stages of my project I am going around in circles about sound proofing. The old place we had was a steel frame with floors fixed directly onto joists with no attempt at sound proofing anywhere at all and we never noticed it being a problem. Now we've put up an MBC timber frame - with posi joists and 22mm chipboard nailed and glued above. I plan to put in engineered wood floors upstairs and was assuming I'd put in acoustic underlay of some sort, rockwool in the floor space and doubled up plasterboard under. The walls are filled with cellulose - the building's three floors and the stairwell will carry sound pretty well all the way up. Looking at the underlay options there seem to be many that are thin with not much benefit in terms of noise and then eye wateringly expensive thicker options that offer significant sound reduction. Any experience from the MBC builds that might help square this particular circle would be much appreciated Oh and as a supplementary the stud walls come with a sheet of 9mm OSB on one side - any idea of how much this contributes to sound reduction? I was told the other day that there's some advantage in having different weights of covering on each side of the walls to reduce resonance - I couldn't find anything with a bit of googling that gave much on OSB in the wall for sound.

A while ago I remember seeing some great photos someone had posted showing their ceiling insulation between web joists prior to boarding. I am just about to start this job & seeing the photos again would be so helpful. I have tried to find with lots of searches but to no avail. Anyone remember this? Thanks