Will one more layer of sheetrock really help? (1 Viewer)

[Geoff S]

Two quick questions...

First the situation is I'm moving my room and all my HT components from the 2nd bedroom of my apartment to the larger first bedroom. Nice thing about my little 2nd room was it wasn't bordering any other units, but the new room is. By code my apartment and the one next door is bordered by 4 layers of 5/8" sheetrock (firewall), which is a decent sound barrier as it is. BTW the room I'm bordering is a bedroom next door, isolation is a must, and insulating inside the walls isn't possible.

What I'm considering is adding an additional layer of 5/8" sheetrock to that bordering wall. Question is... am I wasting my time cause it'll have to be installed, floated, primed and painted... or is it going to be too little improvement to even worry about doing all that work. One thing we can all agree on is it can't hurt. I even considered perhaps putting a thin layer of foam in between the old rock and new layer to help out.

Second questions is this: The subfloor is concrete. That steel reinforced concrete which the whole building is made out of allows sound to travel easy, particularlly banging, knocking, and booming sounds (like a Subwoofer). What I'm considering doing is liquid nailing a layer of 3/4" plywood and putting carpet over that. Again, I ask... pros/cons of this. Will it do any good, or am I wasting my time.

Any alternatives are welcome. Thnkas everyone for reading and any help you can offer.

 

[Jimi C]

This dosnt sound like something most owners would want there tenets do be doing to there property.

 

[Geoff S]

To clarify, I own the unit. I say apartment, but it's really a condominium.

Everything I'm considering doing is acceptable in my building as long as I don't pass my borders (i.e. start modifying things beyond my walls going into my neighbor's unit).

 

[Andy_Bu]

For the part where you want to install plywood and then a rug, you might want to check out the product that I just put down on my basement HT project.

It is called interfaceflor, and it is a rug in tile form that can be installed directly onto cement.

Everyone who has seen it so far has been very impressed with it.

http://www.interfaceflor.com/service/flor/index.html

Andy

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Geoff,

True, solid materials transfer sound better than air does. But they also block air-born soundwaves rather than transfer them. This is why noise at your neighbors is not as loud as it is in their own place, for instance.

Because of its thickness and density, concrete will do a much better job of blocking sound than say, the sheetrocked walls between the units. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that thick concrete is among the best remedies to reduce or eliminate the transference of low frequencies.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[KenA]

You're not really going to block all low frequency sound, but if you have the clearance, you can try using resilient channel on the walls with another layer of drywall attached to it. The air space between the drywall will help trap lower frequencies. You'll probably have to fir out any doorways on that wall, though.

 

[Tom D]

The other thing I would do would be to "float" the floor. Home Depot sells a product that has rubber pad with feet attached to plywood. It is meant for basements so that the water would flow between the feet and to the drain. Any way they are not meant to be secured to the floor, but rather to just sit on top. In theory this would decouple the subwoofer from the floor, plus add some air between the floor and subfloor. The nice byproduct of this decoupling is that some of the bass energy would be absorbed by the floor, thus acting like a tactile transducer, in essence shaking the floor and your couch. Just imagine an explosion on screen moving your couch, making you a part of the action.
I would also second the resilient channel and then sheetrock
suggestion as per Ken. The resilient channel will add an air gap to reduce sound transmission and it will also allow the sheetrock to "flex" thereby absorbing some of the bass energy from the sub. This helps reduce standing waves.

Regards, Tom

 

[SteveLeach]

You might try substituting "blue board" for the sheetrock. At least I think that is the name of it. It's about 5/8" thick made from concrete. It's mainly used for sticking tile to, as such it is water proof and very dense. I don't what the cost would be in comparison to normal sheetrock, but it's an idea.