I’m working on a bathroom in a two story + daylight basement, four bed house (circa 1974).
The bath is on the second floor, over the kitchen.
The noise from normal use of this bath is easily heard in the whole house. Heck, it’s as if it’s amplified.
I’m guessing the sound is being transmitted through the ABS pipes.
I’m opening up parts of the floor to access the pipes (new closet flange, etc) next.
Looking for any suggestions for toning things down.
Many thanks, Harry
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Replies
Short of changing over to cast iron.
I have pulled apart a couple jobs from teh 70/80's that used a dense sound mat-looked very similar to the old horsehair carpet pad. I have not idea what or where to find this stuff.-might just have been older style carpet pad.
An open chase magnifies the sound. Dense pack blown in insulation I imagine would help quite a bit. I have packed tightly sound deadening fibreglass and this does help.
More mass-layers of drywall should also deaden the sound.
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
It could be the sheet metal duct work. See if there is a cold air return close by.
In my house the sound will travel thru the air to air heat exchanger ducts from bathroom to bathroom and they all have home runs to a main manifold.
I made a baffle to eliminate the direct noise with and opening on the upper side to let the air in, noise reduced dramaticly !
Around here they use a special pipe soundproofing for plastic pipes. It's got a plastic wrapper and some sort of foam inside. I hear that there is something better made out of compressed glass fibers.
Insulation does not work, sound easily goes thru it. Use pieces of drywall cut the width of the joist space. Suspend the drywall between the ceiling and drain pipe with insulation or nails into the sides of joist.
Sure, insulation is an acoustic barrier, that's why they can put it on the label. FG will help control high frequencies. Low frequency you need resilient channel or mass. Since you're apparently not opening the entire floor there's little chance of an effective solution.
The flushing noise in ABS pipes is difficult to control so replacing those with cast is worthwhile.
The entire bathroom noise issue would best be controlled from below with RC. Read up, it needs to be properly installed to work.
Type "acoustic" in the search window at http://www.mcmaster.com/ . They have some cool product and info too.
OB
For ABS flushing/splashing noise Fiberglass and foam does not work. My cheap fix of drywall scraps DOES work. My method does not work for high heels and tap dancing.
B&W line drawings are a LOT smaller sized than anything else.
Saving it as a GIF took the file size from 460 kb to 4 kb.
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If it wasn't for plumbers, you'd have no place to go.
What type of sound?
Use of plumbing fixture (water moving in the pipe) or general use ( walking, closing cabinet door et al)
Thanks everyone for the replies.I was working on the bath over the weekend.Come to find out the 3" waste pipe in routed directly into a soffet in the kitchen under the bath, runs horizontal a few feet, then down to the basement.There is also a heat duct in the same soffet.So it's really an acoustic nightmare.Plumbbill, most of the noise is water/waste/pipe related.Thanks, Harry
Plumbbill, most of the noise is water/waste/pipe related.
Only thing transmits sound better than ABS is copper ;-)
So let's start with the water pipe. Isolate it from all wood structure & duct work.
I'm going to venture a guess a say that replacing the ABS with cast iron is out of the question.
So again isolate the ABS from the structure, use of foam tape inbetween the pipe & the hanger strap will help quite a bit.
The main noise comes from vertical to horizontal change in flow.
Insulating the pipe can help, but the main thing with insulating pipe for sound is density.
For density, could you pack around the pipe with something like Structolite?
I'd wrap the pipes with something rubbery, like rubber flashing membrane material.
Nothing will really help but mass.
Change over to no-hub in the soffit at least.
QuietRock works very well. 'Squishy' stuff won't help with sound transmission.
Jeff
Squishy stuff won't help with sound transmission, but visco-elastic stuff will.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
http://www.soundown.com/AI.htm
I was given some of this, left over from a marine application. I used it around plastic waste pipe. I suspect it's not cheap.
A trick I learned on BT is to wrap the pipe with Ice and Water Shield. Adds mass, worked well the one time I used it.
Yep, viscoelastic materials. Even better would be a layer of the membrane, a layer of thin aluminum, and then another layer of the membrane.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
Viscoel...
Viscelo...
Bituethene
Many thanks to everyone for all the ideas and thoughts.I think in this case, any effective approach is going to have to happen from the area under the bathroom. Even if I took the whole floor up, I would not be able cure all the problems.Talk about poor practices,,,,, How about installing a 3" (3 5/8" OD) pipe in a 2x4 wall,,, and scarfing out the back of the drywall to "make it fit".And I have seen this done on several other jobs I've worked on in this area over the past few years,,,,,, Good God!!Might as well put a microphone in the bathroom and run it thru the Hi Fi.Thanks again to everyone that posted.Harry
Another sound-deadening technique is to glue drywall scrap to the backside of the drywall. You don't have to have complete coverage and wouldn't even have to cover the area where the pipe is if there isn't clearance -- the extra weight/thickness keeps the drywall from acting like a drumhead and transmitting the sound.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel