Sound Proofing A House For Rent

If you are building your own house to live in, a higher than average level of soundproofing will help to make it more comfortable for you and your family. If you are hoping to rent out rooms, you should be aware than tenants often leave for another house because of high noise levels in their existing accommodation. So the money spent in increasing sound insulation is well spent.

Sound levels in houses are measured in decibels (dB). The dB is a logarithmic unit used to describe a ratio. A reduction of 3 dB is enough to produce a noticeable lowering of the noise levels in an adjoining room in the house, and a reduction of 10 dB means that the sound level is reduced by almost a half.

The noises within a house occur in three ways. Vibration noises, such as washing machines and central heating systems, impact noises such as people walking around the house and airborne noises such as speech and music from radios and TVs.

Vibration noises can reduced by paying attention to pipe runs and if possible, placing the appliances in an outhouse. Failing this, vibration noises from washing machines and tumble dryers can be reduced by making sure that they have enough room around them and are not hitting the sides of their enclosure when operating.

Fitting a heavy carpet and underlay will diminish airborne and impact sounds. If you are going to fit a solid flooring material, such as wood planking, you can use an sound reducing underlay beneath it.

If the room is on an intermediate floor, in other words has a room both above and below it, you can fill the floor void with insulation, which should be 100mm in thickness. You can also fit a ceiling board of weight at least 10 kilograms per metre squared. These improvements should reduce sound levels by 40 dB, compared to the normal insulation reduction level of 35 dB.

A floating floor will increase the floor depth of the rooms it is fitted in by around 50 mm, but they can reduce sound by 5 dB. There are two types of floating floor, lightweight floors which primarily reduce impact noise and heavyweight floating floors diminish both impact and airborne sounds.

For house walls, a sound proofing improvement that you can make is to fit Formacell plaster boards. These are heavier than standard plaster boards and require very little finishing.

This article is only intended as a basic general summary and you should always seek professional advice where necessary.

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