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SOUNDPROOFING APARTMENT WALLPosted on February 27, 2009 by Ted W

Ted,

I appreciate your help if you take the time to answer my question. I live in a lower income

building where the walls are very thin. Luckily, I only share one wall with my neighbor. I

am not suppose to make any alterations to the apartment. However, I feel that since I pay

the maximum rent which really doesn’t save me much money over renting a house here in

WV, and put over 600 dollars down for a security deposit I should do as I feel.

To the problem…. I know you said that most people worry about ”the aesthetic” of the

place. In my case I could care less. It would be great if I could hang something from the

wall using a massive amount of plastic ”picture hangers” adhesive hangers or whatever

name they go by. Also I could use nails I just know its going to be a slightly bigger clean

up before I leave. If I can make something that is easily movable that will insulate the wall

from noise that is great. If not then I guess they can just complain when they come to

inspect. My question is do you know of any really good materials to use , if its similar to a

mat that I can pull on and off that is great. The wall isn’t very large it only has one

obstacle which is a guard rail. but it does span the downstairs and upstairs. So I would be

willing to put a good bit of money into it to get the best quality.

Thanks for any ideas you can give me.

R.C.

R.C.,

Unfortunately blocking sound is a bit more of a tricky problem than is absorbing echo within the room.

Basically there are two ways to block sound, one is to increase the amount of mass and density that you

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have between space A and space B, and the other is to de-couple the wall assembly, or build two separate

walls that don,t touch each other. The decoupled wall will out perform the wall where only mass is added

to the wall.

The difficult thing about blocking sound is that the products to do that are always found INSIDE of the

wall assembly, covered with sheet rock. The BEST way to block the sound would be to add the RSIC-1 clip

assembly to the wall and “float” another piece of sheet rock, but it doesn’t sound like this is a possibility

in this case.

Another product that would help but require an additional layer of sheet rock is a product called Green

Glue. This is what they call a viscoelastic damping compound which helps eliminate sheet rock from

vibrating or resonating. Kind of like putting your fingers on a drum symbol or a bell to reduce the sound

that is being made by either, this stuff does the same thing to sheet rock. It’s not an adhesive, but it is like

a tube of elastic that goes between an existing layer of sheet rock and a new layer. You still have to screw

through this second layer, back into the studs for structural support, but it will help.

The NEXT step would be to explore the option of hanging the “BSC-T25″ Acoustical Quilted Curtain

panels over the entire wall. This is not a “curtain” in the traditional sense of the word. They are not light,

flowing pieces of cloth that pleat up like a hospital curtain. In the center of these panels, there is an 1/8″

thick, 1lb per square foot layer of Mass Loaded Vinyl which is a decent noise barrier. On either side of the

vinyl, we install a nominally 1″ thick piece of fiberglass and then wrap the whole thing in a heavy duty

vinyl. We install grommets across the top edge and would attach a vertical Velcro section to attach one

panel to the next to make a wall with no air penetrations in it. These panels are VERY heavy but could be

hung from very stout screws or hooks anchored into the header behind the sheet rock. The unfortunate

part about these is that because they are made by hand, they are fairly expensive at around $13.00 per

square foot. If you have the dimensions of the walls you want to cover, feel free to send them to me and I

can get a quote together for you.

The only other temporary option that I have, I would not recommend for a few reasons. The product is

called Mass Loaded Vinyl and is the exact same vinyl (the same stuff in the center of the BSC-T25 panel

above). It is a noise barrier and might help, but there are a few MAJOR concerns that I would be

concerned with. The first is the fact that the product is a class C fire rated product which means that it

does not suppress flame spread and WILL produce toxic fumes if it catches on fire. Basically, the smoke

will kill a person before they can get out of the room, clearly not good. Additionally, it is a vinyl based

product that will have a significant amount of off-gassing. If you’ve ever hung a new plastic shower

curtain or an inflatable air mattress and smelled the “plastic smell”, these will be many, many times

worse and last for a LONG time. Two other things that is going to make this a fairly poor choice is the fact

that when, like plastic wrap for a plate of food, when it tears, it wants to continue to tear, so mounting

can be challenging. Lastly, if there are any air gaps in the vinyl (due to the lack of the vertical Velcro

seams) the product is VERY quickly short circuited. A 5% air gap in the vinyl wall will leak 90% of the


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About Ted WMy name is Ted Weidman. During my time at Acoustical Surfaces, Inc. I

have helped countless people with all kinds of different noise problems.

I have a background in education, which hopefully helps me explain

noise, sound, and acoustics in a way that is easy to understand.

Please contact me with any questions you may have.

direct: 952.466.8225 | office: 800.527.6253 | fax: 952.448.2613

View all posts by Ted W →

sound through it.

PLEASE do not attempt to put up any kind of foam on your wall or cut holes into the stud cavity and fill

the wall with insulation!!! These approaches will do absolutely NOTHING at all for you. They are two of

the most common misconceptions that I deal with every day. Putting foam on your walls will likely make

the problem of a noisy neighbor WORSE because it will make your room(s) even quieter. Consider a

library. The ambient (background) noise in a library is extremely low. Because of this, you are able to

hear someone whisper from a considerable distance. Now consider a loud cafeteria. You nearly need to

scream across the table just to be heard because the ambient noise is so high. The quieter the ambient

noise in your room, the easier it will be for you to hear noises from coming in from adjacent dwellings.

I hope I have not discouraged or overwhelmed you too much. I get calls and E-mails from people in

similar situations all the time, and it is a difficult part of my job. We have products that can likely help,

but because of the type of dwelling, most of the solutions are not possible. The sad thing about the

situation is that buildings like yours are likely put together with cost and speed in mind during

construction and the result is the “paper thin wall” syndrome. They won’t let you do anything to fix it, but

they will continue to take your hard earned rent money. If I had a cheap, easy solution to this I could

probably retire.

This entry was posted in Apartments & Condos, Residential, Soundproofing by Ted W. Bookmark thepermalink [http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/blog/soundproofing/soundproofing-apartment-wall/] .

1Like

linda


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on March 3, 2012 at 10:28 am said:

your link for “RSIC-1 clip assembly” says “Internet Explorer

cannot display the webpage”

Ted W

on March 5, 2012 at 8:24 am said:

Linda,

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I have gone back

into the post and fixed the link. For your convenience, here it is

again.

http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/rsic_clips

/rsic_clips.htm?d=46

Thank you!

Ted

Anissa

on May 6, 2012 at 1:43 pm said:

Hi Ted,

My question relates to the MLV. Is it safer when used

sandwiched between the fiberglass and heavy duty vinyl as in

your quilted panel? or does the danger of off gassing still exist in

this capacity?

I bought some MLV to use in conjunction with closed cell foam

in a car sound deadening project, but once I smelled the fumes

of the roll just sitting in my garage I decided it wouldn’t be a

good idea to install in a car.

My idea now is to possible glue it with vinyl adhesive between


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two sheets of closed cell foam. Do you think this would solve the

off gassing issue at all?

My other idea was to allow it to air out in the garage before

installing it. How long is a long time…?

Thanks,

Anissa

Ted

on May 7, 2012 at 7:52 am said:

Anissa,

Thank you for the comment and question. Some Mass Loaded

Vinyl products will, in fact, off gas for quite some time.

Unfortunately I don’t have a way to quantify or measure the

amount of time it will take as I do not know of any testing that

has been done. For many years, we carried the vinyl that does off

gas but we now carry a different product where this is not a

problem. A vinyl that has been manufactuered through a process

where the vinyl is poured is the type that will smell – the vinyl

that is produced via a process through which it is extruded will

not.

As far as sandwiching it between closed cell foam, there is,

unfortunately, too much relativity in types and specs for foam to

be able to determine exactly what it will do. I would probably

use some kind of air-tight membrane to be sure that the gas is

encapsulated rather than foam if the odor is an issue.

What kind of car-related project are you working on?

-Ted


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Anissa

on June 3, 2012 at 10:06 am said:

Ted,

Thank you for your response. I have been using RAAMatt and

Ensolite foam to decrease the resonance of the door panels in

my Honda Element. The doors used to “clang” when I closed

them. Now, they closed with a nice quiet thud. The car is

definitely a bit quieter now. The doors feel much more solid, and

I can hear more detail in the music.

The MLV was for the floor mat I was making. My hope was to

reduce road noise, although I think doing the space over the rear

wheel wells might make more of a difference there. I ended up

cutting a sheet of MLV to size and letting it air out in my garage

for a month before making my mat. The smell was almost

completely gone by then. (Good to know about the poured vs.

extruded vinyl, -I wish I had known that sooner!) I used ensolite

on the underside, and closed cell foam gym matt for the top and

ran it up to the cover firewall inside the car. (It’s removable,

should it ever become an issue.)

-Anissa

Ted W

on June 4, 2012 at 11:44 am said:

Anissa,

If you are ever considering a project like this again, let me send

you a sample of our PVC Barrier-Decoupler and a chunk of the

v-max They would be absolutely ideal for these situations and I

have used them both myself in both of my past Subarus – a

WRX and a Forester. I used a piece of the V-max on the inside of

all of the doors and then went back, pulled the interior – double

layering the rear deck and trunk (respectively). to help to reduce

the exhaust noise that was making it into the car.


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-Ted


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