Greetings All,
I have typical 2×4 stick framed interior walls that are ready for drywall. Prior to that, I would like to do something to minimize sound transmission from one room to another. I realize that ideally we should use 2×6 and use those resilient metal channels, but all we have to work with are 2×4’s. When I insulated the exterior walls, the vapor barrier said it was good for ‘sound and thermal insulation’. Does fiberglass have much sound insulation at all? Or maybe it’s one of those deals where if it can reduce sound by .00001 decibel, it claims it reduces sound travel… The only other thing I can think of is rigid foam cut to fit in the stud bays, not easy to cut for each stud opening.
Any ideas?
Also, what is good to wrap around pvc drain pipes to minimize water draining through them? I have 2 and 3″ drain pipes running across a ceiling in a joist bay and would like to quiet them also.
Many thanks, Mark
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If you can afford it, spray in foam insulation would be very good, or cellulose packed well (maybe the kind that's mixed with water and sprayed in)--both will leave no gaps for sound to get through like others can. If you foam around drain pipes you will reduce the sound of the water in them.
Hi Mark....do you have access to a product called Roxul? They are a batt insulation manufacturer and have a product called "Safe n Sound" which is designed for your purpose exactly. I've seen the demos with this stuff and it is very impressive at both noise reduction and fire proofing.
One thing I can't figure out is why they don't give their 'Safe n Sound' an R-value rating. Apparently they spec it for interior use only but I'm sure it must be as good as their exterior R-12/R-22 products. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this!
Check it out... http://www.roxul.com
Hope this helps - Mike.
Ordinary fiberglass insulation is not dense enough to have much effect on sound. If you stuffed a double or triple amount in the cavities, it would help some.
Resiliant channel and thicker drywall is the standard method. If you did that you'd have a fair amount of sound reduction.
Mark,
I have the answer! The company you need to look into is SoundSense,(http://www.soundsense.com ) They are located in East Hampton, New York, just a few minutes from my house. I met with them at the JLC LIVE show in Providence in March and they have some very simple solutions to noise. They do special installations for home theaters, sound studios, and just common everyday home sound proofing. They have a "rubber" sheet product that is used for floors , and I believe walls too, although I'm not sure if it would work on exterior walls due to the vapor barrier issue. I say "rubber" because it is more than just a piece of rubber. Some money has obviously been spent on research. One of their products called LV-A is specifically made to stop plumbing and HVAC noises. Their phone # is 631-324-2266. My local lumber yard quoted me a price of a couple hundred bucks to do the ceiling in my 12 x 25 addition. Not bad. Good luck, Doug C
In my house, I put up 4 X 8 sheets of 1/2 inch Homasote board under the rock, and wrapped my PVC drain with carpet pad. Impossible to quantify, of course, but at least I think I helped the situation.
Mark,
Welcome to BT.
I'll chime in with a second vote for Roxul Safe N Sound. This is a mineral wool, not regular glass fibre batting. Mineral wool is much denser, thus its thermal transmission will be correspondingly higher, while its sound transmission coefficient will be lower.
Heat likes to soak into massy things. This is why you feel colder on a damp day at the same temperature than you would on a dry one: the extra mass of the water vapour in the damp air absorbs heat from your body much more readily. The best theoretical insulator against convective caloric transfer would be a vaccuum. This is not practical in buildings, so we use trapped air. And the lower the mass of the material used to trap that air, the better the insulator will perform.
Sound waves, on the other hand, travel by actually moving (vibrating) whatever they encounter. So the more mass the sound waves have to accelerate, the more energy the wave has to give up in amplitude in order to keep going. When enough amplitude has been lost, you can't hear the sound anymore. So the denser your soundproofing material is, the more energy from the sound waves it will absorb. Think of trying to yell through an 8" concrete wall, for instance.
Roxul is easy to work with and is available in standard widths and thicknesses for insertion into stud bays. It cuts with a razor knife and is not (to my skin, anyway) particularly itchy.
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Hi Dino, isn't that what I was saying? ;)
On a serious note...are you in the US or Canada? I don't know how available this product is in the US...
Mike
I'm in Québec, which is still (as far as I know) in Canada. At least it was when I got home from work this evening, LOL.
I'm not sure if Roxul prod's are available in the US; maybe Mark could run it through Google and find their website to check.Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
A couple of relatively simply approaches.
1. Use RC Channel. This holds the drywall off the studs and allows it to move independently, thus transmitting less accoustic vibrations from one room to another.
2. Double your 1/2" drywall walls. Best to do when there isn't a door or window jam to deal with. Also, a great way to use up those drywall pieces that would otherwise find their way to a landfill.
BruceM
Doing stuff between the studs does very little as the sound transference you hear is the studs vibrating like a guitar string. Therefore, the denser the wall the less vibration. If your limited to 2X4 studs, cover each side with 1/2" soundboard and 5/8" blueboard and plaster skimcoat.