Soundproofing a wall

[STL_G8GT]

I know this is from left field, but wanted to share this for anyone who has noise or sound issues between rooms in their home.

We've got a hotel that was built in the 1970s, so the drywall is mounted to fiber board on 2x4 stud construction. Sometimes this can result in noise leaking from room to room. I've set out to fix it, and am working on a few solutions. The trial wall is using ib-1 isolation clips after I pulled off the existing drywall. The isolation clips get mounted on studs at either 16 or 24" on center, then 25 gauge drywall firring or hat channel fitted. This isolates the wall from the studbay a bit. Fine thread metal screws are used, with location important to not short out the channel to the stud. Outlet boxes have fire protection putty pads wrapped around behind them to deaden any sound, and are then sealed up to the drywall in front. We put in r13 insulation in, which by itself does very little, but the end result is a combined effect of all the individual changes. After the first layer of 5/8 sheetrock is up, acoustical sealant is used on all seams.

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Next layer of 5/8" drywall will go up tomorrow, first ceiling, then wall, with a layer of green glue between, two tubes per sheet. Green glue creates a membrane that deadens vibrations and transfers the sound waves to heat.

[wyome]

R13 is poop....blown in insulation or expanding spray foam is gooder

[TooManyHobbies]

You can put a second set of studs up, offset a little, just enough not to touch. Drywall on one side is connected to one set of studs, the other side to the offset studs.

[STL_G8GT]

R13 is poop....blown in insulation or expanding spray foam is gooder
As a thermal insulator, yes, r13 is bottom of the barrel. I did do research on types of insulation regarding sound wave impact for this project. For sound suppression even roxul sound insulation made specific for sound deadening tests just marginally (within margin of error for tests administered) better than good ol r13 in this application. They make a blown in that sticks to the wall, but that's again a negligible difference. If the hat channel wasn't a possibility because of depth, it would be worth the cost to spend extra on insulation. Spray foam also hasn't tested well in sound deadening situations at all from what I've seen.

Now that it's all up, I hope my research was correct. :)

[STL_G8GT]

You can put a second set of studs up, offset a little, just enough not to touch. Drywall on one side is connected to one set of studs, the other side to the offset studs.
Looked into this, and may try it on the next wall I do to compare with the hat channel on iso clips. Problem is I can't swap header/sill out so I'd have to do it on a 2x4 base. I suppose I could add a 2x1 at the base and top firred on.

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[TooManyHobbies]

Looked into this, and may try it on the next wall I do to compare with the hat channel on iso clips. Problem is I can't swap header/sill out so I'd have to do it on a 2x4 base. I suppose I could add a 2x1 at the base and top firred on.

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That is what I would do. I suspect it would be cheaper than the channels you are using. I bet it would block just as much if not more noise too.

[Greg@PacePerformance]

Keep us updated :)
I looked into doing all this when building my home theater in the basement, but decided against it since it was the only room down there.
Really the only sound that gets out comes through the duct work so I should have changed that to the sound barrier kind, and my JL Audio Fathom sub that is 1200 watts doesn't help either lol :)

[STL_G8GT]

Thought I'd come back to this incase anyone attempts going this route.

First off, the IB-1 clips (also known as a-237 made by studco) mixed with 25 gauge hemmed edge hat channel, and two layers of drywall with Green Glue in between works wonders. The Green Glue takes about a month to "cure" and in that time from start to finish there is certainly a difference. In applications where I didn't want to lose too much floor space (this assembly is about 2 1/4 inches complete), I utilized horizontal blocking set back in the stud bay and then mounted the hat channel vertically. This takes the total assembly down to 1 1/2" - which is mostly the 2 layers of 5/8 drywall.

That said, flanking noise is a real B. What we've found is even though you soundproof a wall that is parallel to your living space, sound will jump into any perpendicular walls and work its way around the soundproofed wall. The noise is greatly reduced, but if you want total silence, be prepared to treat all shared walls.

We also used this technique for ceilings and it completely removed any "creaks" and greatly diminished the sound of impact noise (people walking, dropping suitcases, shoes, etc on the floor). Needless to say, it also silenced squeaky beds and toilet flushing.

We never tried the staggered stud route, because we found that the clips do what we want. I suppose sometime in the future I may give it a whirl, but now that I have a method that works for us, I'll stick to it.

Hope this helps anyone looking to attempt a sound proofing project.

Greg, regarding your HT project, mass is your friend, and I'd recommend two layers of 5/8 with two full tubes per 4x8 sheet or one layer of 5/8 and one layer of quiet rock with Green Glue in between. Bass behaves differently than higher range, so your division has to be pretty heavy and tonally dead to soak that up.

[Vivikos2]

You really do a good job. return man 3 (http://qingzhiliao.com/return-man-3-the-season.html) I'd like to see the updates.

[TonyKarter]

From someone who has endured sleepless nights due to thin hotel room walls, THANK YOU for caring and investing your time and money to improve your customers quality of sleep. Wish every innkeeper cared as much as you do.

[STL_G8GT]

Hey Tony, of course!

Large undertaking, but this past winter, before we started a new 4-room building, we went through and soundproofed 7 walls and five first floor ceilings. Now, this isn't a total, 100% silent solution (on wood framing 40yrs old, there really aren't any perfect solutions - mostly due to flanking noise), but it's made a huge difference on spoken word and TV noise, which is what we set out to address. In our 4-room bldg we did the same application with the exception of the center demising wall being a full double stud setup 2x6 with a 2" gap in the middle, and a gypcrete pour upstairs.

If anyone has any sound proof questions, I'm happy to offer insight.