Soundproofing Walls

Soundproofing made simple by soundstop.co.uk

Introduction
When it comes to soundproofing a wall, it is often much simpler than many websites
would have you to believe. This guide will explore the science and practicalities of
soundproofing a wall, and along the way try and explain why we recommend certain
solutions and products.

First there are a number of steps you must think about with regard to the wall you
are looking to soundproof, and the requirements of your budget:

Guide to Soundproofing a Wall © 2019 Soundshield Ltd

Step 1: What kind of wall are you sound insulating
Is it a party wall (a wall you share with a neighbour), or is it an internal wall?

Step 2: What is the wall made out of?

If it is the party wall it is helpful to know what it is made of. This can affect what
choice of materials you have to resolve your noise problem. But don't worry, this isn’t
as hard as it sounds. Normally, buildings built before the war are made of brick. After
1950 they become a bit harder to assess, but the thing you want to be on your guard
against most is breeze block. We will discuss Flanking Transmission in detail later
on, but because of this, breeze blocks can create more challenges in soundproofing
a room - and more work will be required to get a good level of insulation. If the wall
has plasterboard stuck to it with dot-and-dab then this might need removing before
you fit any soundproofing materials. In general, the thing to remember is that
plastered brick walls are easiest to soundproof.

Step 3: How much space can you afford to lose?

The final question you will need to ask yourself is how much space you can afford to
lose when soundproofing your room. A good rule of thumb is that the more space
you can lose the better the acoustic performance, especially when it comes to the
bass frequencies (like deep men’s voices and music). But don’t panic! You can still
get a good result with our slim-line solutions. One thing to bare-in-mind is that
slim-line solutions tend to use more specialist materials which can cost a bit more.

Quick Overview

For solid party-walls, ideally choose either a slim-line 45mm solution like our SM20
rubber panel, or a enhanced but thicker 130mm solution such as our GenieClip
system.

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So which should you go for? In brief, most people who want to soundproof are living
in an urban environment. Losing lots of space is just not practical. So we find most
people opt for a simple slim-line solution. But if you can afford to lose that extra bit
space, then the thicker solution will of course produce a higher level of
soundproofing.

For stud walls there are two options: either remove one face of the wall and install
soundproofing materials, for which there are a multitude of options and thicknesses.
Or for a more enhanced solution, simply add our SM20 rubber panel to the wall.

So is soundproofing a wall really a DIY job?

The answer to that is "yes". If you have a reasonable set of DIY skills, soundproofing
is within most peoples reach - and we can always offer advice on fitting. However, in
reality any competent builder or tradesman can install soundproofing, and we are
happy to recommend an experienced fitter in your area if you wish.

On our website, each wall solutions has a calculator to work out the exact materials
you will need, and set of instructions on how to install the materials.

Decibels: What does it all mean?

Perhaps the most confusing thing about soundproofing is the scale that is used to
measure noise. The numbers can feel meaningless without a little context - you can
see below what decibels (dB) means roughly:

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Unfortunately, the scale is not linear, so a sound that is 80dB is actually ten times as
intense as one that is 70db! And to complicate matters further, the human ear will not
actually perceive this as a ten-fold increase, instead it will sound twice as loud
roughly. Sadly, ear damage is caused by intensity not perception.

As a rough rule of thumb, each 10dB increment increases the intensity by ten times,
and sounds twice as loud. So, for example, a 10dB improvement in your wall
soundproofing, you will hear roughly 50% less sound coming through. And a 20dB
improvement will give another 50% of 50% on top, ie. 75% less sound. Be warned
when buying soundproofing materials and solutions: many companies will boast
50dB in addition to their product's performance. This is physically impossible! They
will be talking about the overall performance of their product plus the wall it is stuck
to which is already there!

The aim of soundproofing is to try and bring the sound within a room back to what
we would call "normal ambient sound" which is around 30-40dB. Remember, you
must treat soundproofing like waterproofing, aiming to block every tiny crack and

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hole. A 1% gap in the surface you are trying to insulate will result in a 10% loss in
performance!

Why is my existing wall so badly soundproofed?

There are many reasons why some walls are so acoustically poor. The most
common reason, and thankfully the easiest to resolve, is the case of Victorian brick
walls. These are often very poorly constructed leaving gaps and cracks between the
bricks - they were built in a day when neighbour-noise was much less of an issue.
The result is that you might literally only have a little plaster work protecting you from
neighbour's television.

With more modern constructions, particularly from the 1960s, the materials used
were too light to afford much soundproofing at all. Unfortunately, whilst some
improvement came, properties built from the 1970s up to the turn of the century
continued to light-weight materials with no acoustic protection in mind.

More recent constructions should be built to conform to Part E of the new Building
Regulations. This should result in a reasonable level of soundproofing. However, our
experience has shown that even in new build houses, sound transfer is still an issue
- usually through bad workmanship, or skimping on materials.

The science behind noise and soundproofing

Noise is transferred to us in the form of sound waves. Each sound wave will have a
particular frequency or pitch. A typical noise might have lots of sound waves of
differing frequencies, ranging from low frequency such deep bass music or a man’s
voice, all the way up to much higher frequencies such as a crying baby, and all the
other frequencies in between. Each of these frequencies has its own set of sound
waves that is passing through your wall (or ceiling, or floor).

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Believe it or not, the existing wall you have is acting as a soundproofing material in
some capacity. But for various reasons it might not be doing a great job. So the goal
when trying to soundproof a wall is to add acoustic materials which will combat as
best we can the whole range of frequencies of sound that is coming through the wall,
and complement the existing wall.

Why is some sound easier to hear than others?

We need to distinguish between the loudness of the noise and the frequency/pitch of
the noise. In general, as sounds of the same volume pass though a wall the low bass
frequencies will penetrate the wall easier than the high frequencies. Low frequency
sounds lose less energy as they pass through a solid object. This is for two reasons;
their longer wavelength, and the fact that low frequency sounds create
resonance/vibration in walls and this helps propagate the passage of sound.

We have found that the problem with a standard brick wall is that it vibrates at a
certain frequency allowing much easier penetration of certain frequencies (normally
bass/low frequency). As such it is important to choose acoustic wall treatment
materials that aim to tackle this resonance problem head on.

Airborne sound versus impact sound

There is a difference between the types of noise that are measured and produced.
They fall into two categories and it's very important to understand the difference
between the two. The first is “airborne sound” and the second “impact sound”:

Airborne sound.

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This is the sound that you hear in a house which is generated by things like a
television, talking, music, and even computer gaming.

Impact sound

This is the sound generated by impact energy causing a surface, typically a ceiling,
but also walls and floors, to vibrate. This kind of sound tends to be much lower
frequency and hence tougher to eliminate.

Frequencies and wavelengths and why some sound is harder to combat

than others?
Each of those frequencies have a different wavelength. The deeper the sound you
are hearing the longer the wavelength. The noise from neighbours people hear is
invariably lower frequencies, and they transmit though walls, floors and ceilings with
less loss.

For the best effect when we disrupt the passage of sound we want to disrupt right
across the whole frequency spectrum especially those low frequency sounds. When
tackling low-frequency sound there are two best practices:

● Firstly, increase the thickness of the wall. However, bear in mind that very low
frequency sound can have a wavelength of 5 metres or more! So whilst just
making walls thicker will improve things more from a low frequency
perspective, it isn't the most effective solution for most people;
● Alternatively, apply a soundproofing solution that will focus on the introduction
of many different specialist materials that will act to break up the resonance in
walls and effectively absorb the sound as it passes through the wall.

So the takeaways here are yes make your wall thicker but also soundproof smarter:

"Thicker"
The highest performing soundproofing solutions will tend to make the wall thicker.
Often increasing the soundproofing barrier by 50 to 100%. Whilst they provide the
best performance over all, these independent soundproof stud walls are not always
the most practical solution from a space loss perspective, especially in smaller urban
accommodation where every inch of living space is highly valued.

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"Smarter"
What do we mean by smarter? The materials we want to use have to try and fulfil a
few key roles in a very limited space. The materials must combine: Mass, Resilience,
and Absorption:

Mass

The most well-known law of soundproofing is the Mass Law. This states that by
doubling the weight of the acoustic barrier you will gain roughly a 6dB improvement
in sound reduction. In other words, if you doubled the size of your brick wall
separation you would get around a 30-40% improvement in soundproofing. This is
why just gluing a couple of layers of soundproofing plasterboard direct to a wall will
just not work! In addition, this will not provide any way of addressing the problem of
the resonance in a brick wall

Resilience

To enhance the effect further, we have to add the mass discussed above in a much
smarter way. The solution is to make it springy so that when the sound waves hit it,
the product vibrates and absorbs significantly more passing energy. The traditional
method of creating resilience was using "resilient bars". These are corrugated steel
bars onto which heavy plasterboard is mounted. Whilst this solution provides sound
protection, and is still used today, it was quite quickly found that rubber mounted
bars do a better job as rubber dissipates vibration much better than steel. The result
is a number of "clip" systems - the foremost of which is the GenieClip system.

It should be noted that good acoustic membranes, such as Tecsound, can act in this
way as well, providing a level of resilience to the solution.

Absorption

Even more efficient that applying a high-mass product, using separate resilient
system is combining resilient layers with materials that have their own internal
resilience. Adding products which are intrinsically heavy and resilient makes sense.
For example, the SBx board product is a sand filled board that vibrates easily
throughout its structure. Equally, rubber layers such as the SM20 mat provide in built
resilience. These products are non-uniform throughout their structure and so will
absorb this sound energy across a much wider range of frequencies.

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So back to our sound waves... Before applying soundproofing, all the sound waves
generated by noise hit the wall in question: the high-frequency waves are more
easily absorbed, and fall off, but the low-frequency sound pass through the wall
easily and in fact cause the wall to resonate helping ease the passage of sound.

When the same sounds hit the smart soundproofed wall, firstly the wall is a bit
thicker and this blocks more of the waves. The sound wave is also encountering
multiple different types of mass and air gaps. The sound is absorbed in the wall and
the wall cannot resonate as one any more due to the resonant frequency of the
applied materials being very different to the original heavy brick.

This science of soundproofing is often more of an art than a science! We bring

together multiple products that work differently, on different parts of the sound wave
mix, to maximize the possibility of successfully soundproofing your wall. All you need
to do is think how much space you can afford to lose and how much budget that you
wish to put to work. We are then happy to offer the best solutions for your particular
circumstance, and guide you through installing it yourself, or finding an experienced
fitter who can do it for you.

Flanking Noise
One additional issue to look out for when soundproofing is flanking noise. Whether
you are soundproofing a party wall, ceiling or floor the construction of the walls of
your property is a key factor as to whether that soundproofing will be as effective as
you would like:

Flanking Transmission
Flanking transmission can unfortunately act to undermine the best soundproofing
projects.

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So what is flanking transmission?
Flanking transmission is simply the term used to describe the passage of sound
through other structures independent of the structure you are trying to soundproof.
Airborne sound will enter any solid structure, and will have a tendency to move
around in that structure. Where the structure is brick this movement is relatively
limited, and not too much of a problem. This however, is not the case in breeze block
structures. Within breeze block, due to the honeycombed structure, sound has a
tendency to move much greater distances, and will move easily into any other part of
the wall which is also breeze block. Whilst breeze block is the biggest culprit, other
build types can also suffer this problem - we tend to find it more prevalent in modern
construction types post 1950 which employ light weight building materials.

An Example
For example: you are living in a 1960’s built property and you have noise issues with
your neighbour. Typically the walls of this kind of property will have been constructed
using breeze blocks for internal walls, not just on the party wall. The sound therefore
will very likely be coming out of the party wall, but it will also be emitting from any
other breeze block wall attached to this wall.

The result is that soundproofing the party wall is unlikely to remove the problem, as
the sound will in effect be coming in around the sides (see diagram). A way of testing
if this is the case is to put your ear to the party wall, then to other four walls in the
room. If it is loud in these other walls then it is unlikely that you will achieve
successful soundproofing - soundproofing all the walls is not usually viable due to
the presence of doors and windows.

Be aware that not all breeze block performs so badly. But where it does no
soundproofing system from any manufacturer will be effective if applied just to the
party wall.

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Flanking transmission in ceilings

The same problem can occur through ceiling and floor where the walls are light
weight construction. The floor or ceiling can be soundproofed but the residual sound
just carries down the wall.

Steel and concrete RSJ's can also act as effective conduits for the sound to travel
through.

We have a lot of experience with flanking noise, so if you think you might be effected
then get in contact, and we can help find out more.

Our Recommended Solutions

We have tried and tested most systems and product in the market - in real-life
situations as well as the traditional lab tests. As a result, we believe the following
range of solutions gives our customers the best options for different wall types, and
depending on the amount of space they can afford to lose:

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 1. SM20 Rubber Panels: great performance, slim profile and very DIYable;
2. GenieClip Stud System: maximum soundproofing performance, relatively slim
profile, can be fitted by an experienced DIYer;
3. GenieClip Direct-to-Wall System: great performance, slimer profile than
GenieClip Stud System;
4. Independent Stud Wall: great performance, low cost solution, and can be fitted
by an experienced DIYer;
5. Stud Wall Solution: aimed at upgrading an existing stud wall that has no
soundproofing, slim line with great performance; and
6. Ultra Slim Wall Solution: when space is at a premium, good performance.

We also offer "enhancements" for most of these systems to give them even better
soundproofing performance.

Our website at soundstop.co.uk provides easy to use calculators to allow you to

work our exactly what materials and parts you need to install each of the solutions,
along with full installation guides.

We are often asked what is the final finish and do I need a plasterer? We provide all
the materials necessary to achieve a smooth decorate-able finish. Please see video
below on dry-lining. The wall you end with will be similar in appearance to the video.
We supply the finishing compound that allows you to achieve a smooth wall without
plastering. All items are automatically added when you press the blue calculator.

If you are thinking of refitting electrical sockets back into the wall. you might be
advised to line your electrical boxes with our acoustic putty. Remember a 1% hole in
your soundproofing surface can reduce performance of your soundproofing by up to
10%. Lining your plug sockets will go some way to reducing this leakage.

Need More Help?

We'd love to help you further. You can get in touch with us in the following ways:

Web: https://www.soundstop.co.uk
Telephone: 02081239710
Email: info@soundstop.co.uk
Facebook: @soundstopuk

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About Soundstop
We are a family owned business that is passionate about helping customers find
peace. We hand pick our products and solutions from trusted suppliers - we don't
see the the point in offering you two identical products: we test them, and offer the
best. And, we are always there at the end of the phone, email or web to help you -
whether you are just starting to investigate soundproofing, are ready to improve your
home, or in the middle of an installation and need some help!

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