Looking for solutions for shared wall noise

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mtech

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I have a noisy neighbor who plays their stero and television so loud that I can hear through our shared wall. What is particularly annoying is the loud bass coming from their stereo.

They have a television mounted on the wall and speakers.

I have been researching for solutions for this issue and I hoping to get input from the community.

Sound proofing is not an option because of the resources needed to sound proof a wall.

I know the best I can do is sound dampening.

After doing a search, acoustic panels and bass traps are my best options.

From what I read, foam is limited and that compressed fiber glass or polyester fiber is a better option. So I am looking at that.


Any recommendations would be appreciated.
 
Have you tried explaining your annoyance to your neighbor and asking them to turn down the volume?
 
That has been done in the past with different neighbors, however the results have been mixed.
It is not worth the chance of the neighbor getting angry and raising the volume.
 
That has been done in the past with different neighbors, however the results have been mixed.
It is not worth the chance of the neighbor getting angry and raising the volume.
Well, you might try getting a bigger, louder system. Fight fire with fire.
 
The good solutions are not simple or cheap. I expect that you have reviewed many of them. (actually they would have been simple and not extremely expensive when your place was built, but that ship has sailed)

But one (possibly) simple and cheap part of any of those solutions is that the wall be absolutely air tight. Even a 1/16" hole with transmit significant amounts of sound. Baseboards and electrical boxes are particularly suspect. They make acoustic caulk for this purpose --- I doubt its anything too special -- probably any caulk that stays flexible would work as well. I believe they also make acoustic putty.
 
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Is this a townhouse and you own it or an apartment? If you can spare the space, placing horizontal channels on the wall and adding a layer of drywall on top will help. These help isolate your finish drywall from the common wall studs. Of course one of the challenges is you give up about 2" of room depth and have to reinstall baseboards and put up with the mess of drywall sanding.

The bass problem is tough. I've owned two townhomes over the years and they used different wall construction between units with some success. The first used a common 2x6 for the top and bottom plate of the common walls and then used 2x4's for the studs, they were staggered so my sheetrock wasn't touching the neighbors studs. They insulated the wall with standard fiberglass. It worked pretty well, there also weren't any outlets in the common walls. They might have even had a double layer of drywall, but I'm not sure. The second had separate wall panels for each unit with a 1" (or thicker) piece of gypsum board in-between as a firewall. They cut corners and only insulated one unit's interior common wall. It worked fairly well, can't say it was better or worse than the other one. I did get more noise in that house but that was mainly because my next door neighbor was a jerk and didn't care if he played his music loudly.

Channels - https://www.lowes.com/pd/3-2187-in-W-x-120-in-L-x-0-875-in-D-Galvanized-Steel-Stud/3370386
 
I think talking to the neighbors is still the best option. If you fear retaliation, play the long game: befriend them first and don't mention the noise until you've established rapport and are sure of how they'd react.
 
I think that trying to talk to them still needs to come first. If is a townhome, there is probably an HOA and having a sound system on the shared wall may be something that is not allowed. In any event, if you need to involve the HOA they almost surely will ask if you talked with the neighbor first. As a last resort, you can try the "fight fire with fire" approach.
 
It's worth keeping in mind that a lot of the time people don't want to bother others, and might not realize when they're doing it. If these people are blasting music/TV shows you can probably figure out what it is and say "Hey I noticed you're a fan of [whatever]." Laugh and say "Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop, I heard it pretty clearly through the wall late at night while I was putting the kids to bed. Thin walls! What did you think of [their first album/the whatever season/etc.]?"

and this might be enough to make them self-conscious to make them turn down the volume next time.
 
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