So, we're doing a lot of decorating in a room above our living room, in which my daughter sleeps.

This is a once in a house-time opportunity to put some acoustic insulation in between the living room (with surround sound) and her bedroom (with music in).

So, my options are:
1) acoustic insulation underlay type stuff, about £200 to do the room
2) get the floorboards up, put rockwool in the cavity and relay with fibre-boards. This will also allow me to get rid of the squeaking floorboard.
3) any other ideas from you all

I have a circular saw with a depth-set, so I can whizz around the room and cut the boards to get them up with a crow-bar, and I appreciate this is a one-way deal.

Any ideas on successful approaches?

Thanks
Mark

Id be inclined to do both, myself. Maybe after a good google to see what else can be done.

Kingspan or Celotex in between the joists.

I'm planning on putting some on the underside of the ceiling in the room below. This will be a full coverage primary to stop heat loss but would also give good sound insulation.

Would it not be easier to do this and put a new ceiling up downstairs than to rip floors up?

Also if anyone has done what I'm thinking of and help or advise would be appreciated.

The ceiling in the happily decorated living room below is in great nick, so I'm not taking it down.

However, the floor in the room above can be ripped out without issue and it's a quick job to put another one in using tongue-and-groove fibre board.

When we had the extension done the builders put rockwool in the stud walls for sound-proofing which is why I was thinking of putting it in between the joists.

M

I have stuck rockwool between joists when I did some work on a house that is let out as flats. Makes very little difference.

The other day I saw a product at teh builders merchants. Looked remarkably like foam underlay glued to chipboard. Laid underlay down. I would be inclined to try this, or something to get rid of the hard join from floorboards to joists. I would also look at a dense underlay on top, something like the duralay stuff which is heavy. Something I am doing in our new house when I get on to the eldest daughters bedroom......

BTW do you reckon stuffing studwalls helps? again I have found it makes very little difference. The 2 walls are still rigidly connected....I reckon double layer of plasterboard is more effective. And offset studs seem a good idea.

Thanks, Clifty. The most recent bit of stud walling had foam backed plaster board, so there may be something in that.

quote:

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Originally posted by cliftyhanger
I have stuck rockwool between joists when I did some work on a house that is let out as flats. Makes very little difference.

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Kingspan and celotex are generally thermal insulation. Mineral wool is best bet.

Also, be careful with circular saw, a lot of houses will have metal restraint straps screwed on to the side of floor joists, and even worse, elec cables and water pipes close to the surface.

Thermal insulation products won't help much at all with sound insulation. This needs very dense absorbent materials and physical separation. There are specific systems for spacing plasterboard off the joists/studs to achieve this and IIRC there are plasterboard products with increased sound insulation properties.

Another approach is to double up on the plasterboard. This is often done on party walls of timber framed semis and terraces. It's quite effective if done both sides of the wall. Maybe not suitable for ceilings though due to the extra weight.

I'm sure there was an LCB member who did this sort of work, can't think who it was though.