After a hard day at work, you want peace and quiet. But it is not always possible to enjoy the rest - quarrels, screams of children, loud music or repairs from neighbors can become an insurmountable obstacle for this. To get rid of unpleasant sounds, you need to make noise isolation. Modern materials allow you to complete all work quickly and at no extra cost.

Peculiarities

“My home is my fortress,” as the famous proverb says. In the modern world, this is not only a fortress, but also a corner of relaxation from everyone, a place where a person can do what they love in a comfortable environment for him, get a boost of energy, or, conversely, calm down after an active day. Silence, peace, tranquility, solitude - this is what a person desires while at home.

But it is far from always possible to isolate oneself from the whole world in one's home. Footsteps in the entrance or corridor, the noise of the elevator, the conversation of neighbors behind the wall - all these sounds prevent a person from relaxing, resting alone with himself, distracting himself from everyday worries and troubles, forgetting about his problems. The fault is poor sound insulation.

In an apartment, especially if it is located in a new building, you can clearly hear everything that happens outside it. If external soundproofing somehow saves from street noise, then thin walls between apartments make privacy a public domain. You can avoid this if you make noise insulation in the apartment. High-quality materials on the modern market allow you to complete work in a short time and do not require a lot of effort and time.

Modern sound insulation performs two functions - it is actually insulating and absorbing. It not only absorbs noise from the outside, but also drowns out the sounds coming from the apartment. This makes it possible to protect your privacy from outside interference and provides protection from the penetration of any extraneous noise.

Multi-layer structures are capable of soundproofing an apartment. But they take up a significant part of the area, which is unacceptable in modern apartments that do not differ in large footage. Now manufacturers offer a large number of materials that do not "eat up" the area and provide good sound insulation. Nevertheless, the thinness of these materials provides excellent protection from noisy neighbors.

You can protect yourself from extraneous sounds using drywall, soundproofing boards or simple plaster. These methods are most actively used in order to soundproof an apartment.

Modern materials

The modern market offers a wide variety of materials for sound insulation. They differ in their composition, structure, cost, efficiency. But most often, noise insulation in apartments is carried out using the following materials, which have proven themselves well:

• decorative blocks;
• basalt cardboard;
• cork coverings;
• polyurethane foam.

In addition, you can use sound-vibration sealants, noise-absorbing mastics, special noise-insulating wallpaper or fiberboards. The most profitable from the point of view of cost savings will be the purchase of a roll of sound insulation, which is simply glued to the wall using vinyl wallpaper glue. Despite all the benefits and ease of installation, this method is more suitable for rental housing, in which you do not want to invest a lot of money.

Roll-up soundproofing absorbs sound only by 60 percent, which is considered a rather low figure.

As for drywall, additional costs are required for its installation, such as:

• purchase and installation of a metal profile or wooden bars for the frame;
• purchasing fiberglass or mineral wool;
• purchase of vibration-insulating material.

Using drywall is a great way to get rid of acoustic noise (the one that travels through the air). It penetrates through small cracks, chips on the walls, pores of the material from which the wall is built. So additional wall covering with vibration-insulating material and drywall will significantly reduce the noise level in the room. And the cost of this material is acceptable, because it is about 90 rubles per square meter.

The price range for sound-absorbing materials is much wider - from 60 to 400 rubles per square meter. Such a range of prices allows you to choose the most suitable option, for example, you can use ordinary felt as a sound-absorbing material.

For all its advantages, plasterboard structures have a significant drawback - they reduce the area by about 8 centimeters, so it is impractical to mount them in small rooms. Special soundproofing panels can be used. They are more expensive than drywall, because on average they cost 750 rubles per square meter, but they have a ready-made decorative finish made of paper or fabric, and they can also provide good sound insulation with minimal effort.

Decorated slabs can significantly reduce finishing costs, or even get rid of them altogether.

There are three main groups of soundproofing materials on the modern market, such as:

• hard ones contain pumice, expanded clay, cork or other porous material;
• semi-rigid are made from materials based on expanded polystyrene;
• soft materials are represented by mineral wool, fiberglass and others.

Each of these materials has its own advantages. Of course, the main selection criterion is the level of sound insulation that each material can provide. The speed of installation, the complexity of the work, the ability to carry out the installation yourself, the cost of the material and how much the area of ​​the room will be reduced when using it is also of great importance. Roll materials have the lowest level of noise absorption. The noise level is only 60 percent. But this is a pretty good indicator, especially when it comes to rental housing.

Drywall and soundproofing panels provide roughly the same result. If there is a difference, it is insignificant. But the panels take up less space, require less effort during installation, and make it possible to save on external finishing. However, their cost differs significantly from the cost of materials for soundproofing using drywall.

Device

Soundproofing with drywall in its construction resembles a puff cake, which includes the following layers:

• cement mortar or special sealant designed to level the surface of the wall;
• vibration-insulating material that will help reduce vibrations, which will also have a positive effect on increasing the level of sound insulation;
• frame, which can be metal or wood.

Vibration-insulating material is needed in order to get rid of vibrational sound vibrations, namely those that propagate in a solid medium. Everyone is familiar with the noise of a drill, jackhammer and the like. These sounds are referred to as vibration noise. They spread through the walls of the building, which begin to vibrate quite perceptibly. Further, the actual insulating material is used - it can be mineral wool, fiberglass or even felt. And finally, the top layer of the "pie" is the drywall itself. The thickness of such a structure can be up to 8 centimeters.

Soundproofing panels often look like ordinary decorative panels, but still have some differences. In particular, this is their composition, which includes basalt or glass fibers. Cellulose fibers can also be used. Such slabs resemble corrugated cardboard, the void inside which is filled with mineral granules, the basis is refined quartz sand.

It is possible to improve the soundproofing properties of the panels by creating a multi-layer structure. Plain mineral wool or also fiberglass, laid between the panel and the wall, can increase the level of sound insulation several times.

The composition of the plaster used for sound insulation is no different from the usual one. This is the same decorative plaster that is used in the repair or decoration of premises. Of course, she will not be able to significantly reduce the noise level in the apartment, but still the result will be. The fact is that noise penetrates into the apartment through minor damage to the wall surface - chips, cracks, loosely fitted finishing materials. The plaster evens out the walls, fills in the damage, and therefore prevents the penetration of noise.

Installation technology

You can install soundproofing with your own hands. This is a simple procedure. If everything is done correctly, carefully, then there will be no problems. If questions do appear, then the step-by-step instructions below can answer them.

• Installation of sound insulation begins with leveling the walls. They need to be carefully examined and covered up with any, even the most insignificant, damage - cracks, chips and others.
• The next step is the construction of the frame. It can be made of a metal profile with a vibration-insulating gasket or ordinary wooden blocks. The profile can be pasted over with polystyrene tape, which will additionally absorb noise. A simple mesh netting is also suitable as a frame for mineral wool, fiberglass or felt.

• Once the frame is erected, you can start laying the soundproofing material. A free space of about 1.5–2 centimeters, the so-called air cushion, should remain between the soundproofing pad and the wall. It will provide additional protection against noise.
• Plasterboard is being installed, which is attached to the frame with dowels. Decorative finishes are applied as needed. This can be painting, whitewashing, plastering or varnishing, wallpapering and more.

• Soundproofing boards require less effort and time. They are mounted and connected together using the groove-thorn method. If the walls are uneven, you will need to install the lathing. This is the only addition that will be required when installing soundproofing boards.

In order for the sound insulation to be as complete as possible, it is necessary to insulate not only the walls, but also the floor, ceiling, socket outlets, engineering equipment (all kinds of pipes) and windows. The ceiling is insulated in the same way as the walls. As for the floor, a sound-absorbing coating is used for it. It contains special paper, fiberglass, foamed polymer or other synthetic substance. You can lay the material under the screed or laminate.

To soundproof the sockets, they must, first of all, be disassembled and removed from the socket, having previously de-energized. A washer made of foam rubber, fiberglass or polystyrene is placed in the socket. The cracks are covered with plaster.

Modern plastic windows provide good protection against extraneous noise, and external sound insulation, even in new houses, is performed quite efficiently. But, nevertheless, installing additional insulation will not hurt. Street noise, especially in large cities, can break through any insulation installed by the developer and ruin your holiday. Therefore, soundproofing of windows and external walls must be carried out especially carefully.

The installation scheme for soundproofing materials is not as complicated as it might seem at first glance. If you strictly follow the plan, the work will not take much time and effort, and the right material will not “eat up” most of the area.

All work on soundproofing the apartment can be easily done by yourself. The main thing is not to rush, to carry out the installation and installation of materials in stages, carefully coat all the cracks and discrepancies so that the repair gives the expected result - silence. This is not as difficult as it might seem. And with the right choice of material, it does not take much time. Installation of the same slabs, for example, will take a minimum amount of time, even if all the work is done by one person.

Modern materials can significantly increase the level of noise insulation in the apartment. Drywall is a budget option that can provide good sound insulation. When using it, the area of ​​the room, of course, decreases, but not much. Soundproofing with roll materials will be cheap. They are easy to install, do not reduce the area of ​​the room, and do not require a lot of time.

Of course, you can also use the old noise reduction techniques. Carpets on the walls, shelves with books can also increase noise insulation. But the first of these methods is not environmentally friendly, because a large amount of dust accumulates in carpets and bacteria can multiply, and the second requires a fairly large area. In small modern apartments, a bookcase from floor to ceiling will take up a significant part of the room, leaving no room not only for any other furniture, but also for comfortable movement.

Modern thin materials fulfill all the necessary requirements, providing good insulation and not taking up a lot of space.

The decorative component depends on the selected material. If drywall requires additional finishing, for example, painting, wallpapering, then soundproof panels do not need this. They themselves are a good decorative element, thanks to the decor made of fabric or paper, which is applied to them during production.

Instead of mineral wool or glass wool, you can use regular foam. It has good sound insulation properties.

A chain-link mesh or its substitute with cells of the same size can be used as a frame. They are attached to the wall as follows:

• first you need to drill holes in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of 1 m from one another;
• plastic or wooden plugs are driven into them;
• mount the structure in the form of a puff pie: first mineral wool (glass wool, polystyrene), then a mesh, which is attached to the corks with nails or screws. The mesh must be pulled well so that it does not sag;
• the wall is covered with a layer of plaster. The solution for it is kneaded from cement and sand, sifted through a fine mesh. The proportions depend on the brand of cement. The higher it is, the more sand you need to take. For example, for one part of cement M200 take 2–3 parts of sand, and for M300 – M400 - 1 part of cement and 4–5 parts of sand.

It is better to carry out plastering work in a warm time to avoid cracking and flaking of the coating.

Very good sound insulation of inter-apartment and inter-room walls is obtained with the use of gypsum boards. To do this, two plates are installed on the cement mortar parallel to each other, and a void of about 5 centimeters is left between them. Wood is also a good sound insulator. In addition, wooden structures are natural, environmentally friendly, they do not emit harmful substances in the room. You can take timber or boards 50-60 millimeters thick. They are attached to the walls in the same way as foam and mineral wool, that is, holes are drilled, then plugs are driven into the holes, to which vertical slats 50-60 millimeters thick are attached, and boards are fixed to the slats with nails in a horizontal position.

As sound insulation and insulation, chipboard or cement-particle boards are used. They can be plastered, painted, wallpaper or decorated in any other suitable way.

Plaster, which is also sometimes used as a sound-insulating material, depending on its type, may or may not need decorative design.

If you use special decorative plaster, then additional finishing is not required. Ordinary plaster does not always look aesthetically pleasing enough to leave it intact, without decoration or painting.

If you insulate the floor, ceiling, windows, sockets, all pipes, only then the desired silence will come in the apartment, which will not be disturbed by any extraneous noise. Soundproofing an apartment is a fairly simple matter if you approach it carefully. The main thing is not to make mistakes that can negate all efforts. These errors include the following:

Everyone wants to come home after a hard day at work, take a bath, dine with their family, and then relax and unwind in silence. This is the dream of many city dwellers, but it may not always come true.

Why is it necessary to make soundproofing of an apartment

Usually, one of the neighbors, as always, starts to make repairs at the wrong time, someone loves too loud music or karaoke, and someone’s just running or shouting small children. All this is complemented by the noisy transport outside the window, and on warm summer evenings young people gather in the courtyard, sometimes having fun until late or music sounds from a nearby cafe until midnight.

Thus, the thicker the fence, the less sound can penetrate into the apartment. For an ordinary apartment in a panel house, subject to the installation of high-quality insulation, it would be necessary to add about half a meter to the main concrete wall. This entails a loss of usable area, and also significantly increases the load on the foundation of the building. Therefore, it will be easier and much safer to make a complete soundproofing of a room using thin, light, but effective materials than to build up a structure with heavy concrete or brick.

Noises can be roughly divided into two types:

• impacts that occur as a result of impacts or falling objects,
• airy, such as music, people's voices, etc. They enter the room through windows, doorways, walls, ceilings and floors.

Therefore, soundproofing an apartment is simply necessary so that you and your family feel calm and comfortable. It is important that you need to approach the issue of sound insulation competently and as responsibly as possible.

How to independently insulate walls

At the very beginning, you need to conduct a visual inspection of the walls in the room for the presence of holes, cracks or crumbling joints in them. They will need to be plastered and covered. It should be borne in mind that through sockets located in the rooms, as well as switches, play an important role in the penetration of excessive noise. They need to be properly insulated by changing the boxes themselves and carefully covering the joints with a solution. In this case, you can use special gaskets made of asbestos fabric.

It should be noted that a universal material that is capable of completely soundproofing walls has not yet been invented. You can't blindly trust traditional styrofoam either. The best option would be to install drywall sheets. Sound-absorbing materials such as rock wool or cork backing must be present between the wall and the sheets. When carrying out work, it is necessary to carefully clog the existing cracks and, if possible, avoid the formation of voids. Polyurethane foam can be used to fill the profiles.

The frame for laying drywall must be fixed to the floor and ceiling using special rubber gaskets, leaving a gap of about 5 mm between the wall and the profile, which is then filled with silicone sealant. This option will provide maximum sound insulation. The thing is that through the fastenings available in the structure, the sound can be transmitted to the plasterboard structure itself. In addition, some types of chipboard or sandwich panels can be used for walls.

Carrying out works on soundproofing floors

Before starting work, you need to pay special attention to heating pipes and water pipes, which are in the floor or on the ceiling, the cracks must be sealed with a sealant. Many people think that soundproofing an apartment does not provide for soundproofing the floor. This opinion is wrong. Sound signals coming from neighbors below practically do not meet obstacles in their path. Therefore, the noise from the apartment below will certainly interfere.

In standard panel or brick houses, the best solution is a cork backing with a thickness of 2 cm or more, which is laid directly on the base of the floor even before the cement screed is made. In this case, the cork sheet must necessarily go onto the walls along the perimeter. This will limit the propagation of sounds to solid walls or internal partitions.

If the room has non-standard high ceilings, then sound insulation needs to be done in a slightly different way. In this version, the wooden logs are laid directly on a previously prepared cork backing. The space between them is filled with special hard mineral wool slabs. After that, plywood flooring is made from above. In conclusion, the installation of the flooring itself is carried out.

Organization of noise insulation of the ceiling

When installing a stretch ceiling, fiberglass or mineral wool is attached directly to the very base of the ceiling. It should be noted that a well-assembled stretch ceiling is already a good sound insulator in itself, and sound-absorbing materials placed inside only further enhance the effect.

Soundproofing door and window openings

Among other things, get rid of the noise from the outside, equipped with special insulating glass units. To install them, it would be better to use the services of specialists. It should be noted that the gaps between the window and the wall must be sealed. Otherwise, all the efforts made and the material costs incurred will be made in vain.

Doors at the entrance to the apartment should be as thick and massive as possible. In this case, the box itself must necessarily have a threshold and additional seals so that the door leaf fits as best as possible. For greater sound insulation, you can upholster the door with a layer of leatherette on top of pre-laid foam rubber or any other sound-insulating material.

When buying, choose high-quality entrance doors with good sound insulation.

Just as with windows, the gaps formed between the walls and the door frame are blown out with polyurethane foam, after which they are covered with platbands. In case the audibility is still too high, a double door can be used. The second door leaf is suspended either on the same door frame as the first, or an additional frame is made. Despite the fact that the dimensions of the inner vestibule are quite small, the additional air cushion will give an excellent result.

In conclusion, it should be noted that high-quality sound insulation can only be achieved with an integrated approach. All the little things and nuances should be taken into account, not forgetting to close up even the smallest cracks and openings. Only then can the desired effect be achieved.

Video: How to make noise insulation in an apartment?

Most often, residents of new buildings and panel houses complain about poor sound insulation in an apartment. This is no coincidence, since it is in panel houses that sound insulation is at a very low level. Therefore, we decided to collect all the information on this topic and write a detailed article.

Soundproofing in panel Khrushchev

One of the distinguishing features of panel Khrushchev houses is extremely poor sound insulation. And no matter how hard they fought with this, the sound insulation in panel high-rise buildings leaves much to be desired. And all due to the fact that large-format panels were used in Khrushchev, which they tried to make as dense and thin as possible, in addition, it was necessary to achieve weight reduction and thinning of the supporting structures. Plus, holes and cracks inevitable in large-panel construction. And here is the problem of poor sound insulation, in all its glory.

In the first Khrushchev buildings of type K7, II-35 - the thickness of the floor slabs was 120 mm, and the thickness of the inter-apartment walls did not exceed 10-12 cm.On the contrary, in series II-03, the floors had a thickness of 220 mm + 50-100 mm of slag + the floor along the logs on elastic gaskets. That is, while old technologies were used with slabs of 200-220 mm and backfilling with slag or expanded clay, gypsum screeds, as in modern Khrushchev large blocks and brick buildings - sound insulation was present.

Soundproofing in new panel buildings

Let's first figure out how sound insulation in panel houses differs from sound insulation in brick or monolithic houses? You need to know that in monolithic and panel houses, for example, the sound of a perforator will be heard throughout the house, almost as if it is being drilled in a neighboring apartment, while in brick houses shock noises propagate much worse, however, airborne noise in panel houses also spreads not much worse than drums, in contrast to monolithic houses. The thing is that thick monolithic walls are preferable to other materials as protection from street noise or, say, from singing in a neighbor's apartment. However, if the tenants of one of the apartments started repairs, life in a monolithic building turns into hell, just like in panel houses. On the contrary, walls made of brick or foam concrete transmit sounds to a much lesser extent, but they are less effective in saving from ordinary household noises.

With panel houses, in general, everything is much more complicated - here you need to look specifically at the manufacturer of the plates, the thickness of the product, the design features of the house and the quality of construction. Therefore, each series and year of construction of panel houses has its own characteristics in sound insulation.

In none of the new panel houses, the ceilings do not meet the standards!

Therefore, sound insulation is done at the very first, rough stage of work!

There are very strict standards in relation to noise insulation of residential premises in Russia. And they are much tougher than similar norms in the West, especially in Italy or America. But the trouble is, none of the builders and builders thinks to stick with them. The main task of builders is to build at a cheaper price, sell at a higher price. They also save money on sound insulation, because at first glance it is almost impossible to evaluate it for a non-specialist. And if all the necessary measures for sound insulation are included in the project documentation, this will immediately lead to a rise in the cost of construction by 30-40 percent!

Sound insulation standards in panel houses

Acoustic ecology of a home begins with knowledge of sound insulation standards, which are described in the code of rules for protection against noise SP 51.13330.2011 (updated edition of SNiP 2003). Sound insulation of enclosing structures (ceilings, walls, partitions, doors, etc.) is the ability to impede the propagation of sound, to reduce the noise pressure on people in the room. Noises in houses are divided into two types - depending on the characteristics of education. To protect against each of them, the set of rules has its own standards and indicators.

Airborne noise!

The so-called airborne noise occurs in space and, thanks to sound waves, penetrates through walls, floors, ceilings. This is the sound of musical instruments, TV, turntable, neighbors' conversations, and so on. In accordance with the aforementioned document, the standard for protection against airborne noise in an economy-class panel house is sound insulation at the level of 50 dB.

Impact noise!

But much more often the inhabitants of the house are disturbed by the so-called impact noise. It is formed as a result of mechanical impact on the floor slab in any way - from the steps of people, the movement of furniture, repair work. The transmission of impact noise in the house is determined by a special device that measures the sound pressure level. The higher this indicator, the worse the situation is with the audibility in the building. In panel houses, the sound pressure level is considered to be 60 dB.

Differences between impact and airborne noise!

Impact noise for residents of houses is much worse than airborne noise. First, according to the laws of physics, sound waves gradually fade in the air, and therefore most often such noise only bothers the immediate neighbors who are not lucky enough to live next to the "singers" or "screamers". Whereas impact noise with certain design features can "please" the whole house. Secondly, in most cases, the level of impact noise is not regulated by law (the prohibition is imposed only on repair work at an unspecified time). If you can complain to the appropriate authorities about singing too loud or watching militants, then you will not find a council for a neighbor from above, walking around the apartment on high heels.

Reasons for poor sound insulation of panel houses

The most common reason is poor quality of work. Fencing structures must be designed so that during construction and operation, even minimal through gaps and cracks do not appear at their joints. If such are nevertheless formed, then, according to the rules, they should be cleaned and filled with sealant to the full depth. The seams of internal walls and partitions made of bricks, ceramic and cinder blocks must also be filled and plastered on both sides. However, often in panel houses, these works are done carelessly. But such flaws can only be discovered by new settlers who accept apartments without finishing. But the poor quality of the embedding is not the only reason for the violation of sound insulation. It happens that the technology of installation of interroom and interroom partitions made of modern materials is not followed, when using which it is necessary to strictly follow the manufacturer's instructions. But that's not all. Many panels used for dividing walls have internal voids. Tests are carried out in sound chambers - everything is normal. But during the tests, they do not take into account that sockets will be installed in the walls and hidden wiring will be made. Now imagine that the socket has got into the void - that's it, there is nothing left of the sound insulation!

Soundproofing screed in a panel house!

Oddly enough, the noise "hell" is often organized by the residents themselves and their neighbors. First of all, those who buy apartments without finishing or make major repairs. Often, when making repairs, apartment owners save centimeters in low-rise dwellings and do not lay a sound-insulating layer under the floors.

Often, "homemade products" violate the technology out of ignorance. “The floor slab in a panel house does not provide the required insulation. For good protection from sounds, a “floating floor” device is required. Such a floor should not have rigid connections with the supporting part of the floor, walls and other structures of the building. The concrete screed should be separated along the contour from the walls and other structures of the building with gaps 1-2 cm wide, filled with soundproofing material, such as SoundGuard soundproofing sealant. Contrary to popular belief, this is not done for the neighbors below. A properly made floating floor is the main protection against impact noise! ​​Increased audibility can also form during apartment redevelopment. Often, property owners move the kitchen, expand the bathroom or If next to the bedroom of one apartment, as a result of the "creativity" of the tenants, there is a bathroom in another apartment and the sound of the flushed water prevents the neighbors from sleeping, it is pointless to blame the builders and the quality of sound insulation in a panel house.

How to make sound insulation in a panel house correctly?

1. Decide for yourself what is more important to you: to lose a few cm in exchange for comfort or to put up with and tolerate noisy neighbors? The time and money spent on soundproofing measures will return to you a hundredfold in the form of vigor, healthy sleep and good mood in a few months.

2. Take soundproofing seriously as a separate project. Most of our clients are beginning to understand that it is impossible to live in this nightmare, only after making an expensive designer renovation and moving into an apartment. Many of them quarrel with their neighbors for more than one year, endure, and someone is even forced to sell their homes or dismantle everything and make new repairs with effective sound insulation.

3. Soundproofing is done at the very first, rough stage of work.

4. It is necessary to strictly, scrupulously adhere to the technology of the work. Not a single stage can be ruled out, even if it seems insignificant to you.

5. Performance of soundproofing works in any case requires certain losses of usable area and height of the room. It is recommended to contact a specialist at the design stage. Even if you are not going to order installation from them, you can and should get recommendations on the required design in order to minimize these losses and choose the most effective option for soundproofing your premises.

6. Soundproofing in the room starts from the walls, after the walls they make the ceiling, then the floor.

7. From impact noise (stomp, repair noise, music), metal-frame is most effective. Frameless soundproofing mainly solves the problem of fighting airborne noise, protects against loud TV behind the wall, crying baby, barking dog or loud neighbors.

8. Soft and light materials (glass wool, polystyrene, etc.) are not soundproof, despite the fact that some manufacturers write this on their packaging. These are sound absorbers! However, it is a part of the structure and performs its function - it removes the hum ("drum effect") inside the structure and works for sound absorption.

9. THE MAIN RULE IN SOUND INSULATION IS MASS AND MULTILAYER. Therefore, the heavier and more layered the material, the less sound it will let through. Today, the ideal material for sound insulation is. A square meter weighs almost 20 kg (m2 of drywall, for comparison, lead less than 10 kg)

10. The metal parts of the frame MUST NOT touch the walls! All metal parts must be glued with vibration-damping tape.

11. Pay special attention to sockets and switches. For them, you need to use special ones. Such a seemingly trifle can nullify all sound insulation efforts.

12. Walls, ceiling and floor must have less than 5 mm clearance around the perimeter.

13. Gaps, seams, joints MUST be filled with soundproofing sealant.

14. Use only materials for sound insulation that are safe, environmentally friendly and hypoallergenic! Ideally, use materials made from natural materials in which there is no chemistry, resins, or glue.

Do-it-yourself soundproofing of an apartment in a panel house! Simple tips!

1. Electrical outlets

An electrical outlet mounted on an apartment wall is very often one of the most likely pathways for noise from neighbors to enter. It is easy to verify this by simply putting your ear to it (just try not to get an electric shock). The fact is that in some reinforced concrete wall slabs, even at the production stage, through holes are provided for installing electrical accessories. Then the builders simply install the sockets in two adjacent apartments, while leaving a through channel through which noise can almost freely enter your apartment.

What to do?
Disassemble the electrical outlet and back box in accordance with electrical safety regulations. You may also see the bottom of the neighbor's electrical outlet box. Install instead of the old back box -. Then seal the hole. It is recommended to use the services of an electrician for this operation. Note: Do not use polyurethane foam to seal the hole without plastering it. Polyurethane foam is not a sound insulating material and, moreover, is highly flammable.

2. Risers of the heating system.

Risers of heating and water supply pipelines, according to building codes, must be laid through the floors using vibration-insulated sleeves. For this, a metal pipe of a larger diameter in comparison with the riser is embedded in the ceiling. The gap between the two pipes must be filled with a non-combustible sound-absorbing material and sealed with a non-hardening sealant. In practice, this is often not done. The builders either do not fill up the cracks in the liner with mineral wool, or they simply do not use the liners, sealing the riser directly into the ceiling with cement mortar. After many years of operation, gaps must appear between the riser pipe and the floor slab. Sound from neighbors below and above can freely penetrate into your apartment through cracks and non-densities. In some cases, undesirable odors also penetrate through such slots.

What to do?
If the riser is routed through an overlap in the sleeve, it is recommended to seal the gap between the sleeve and the riser with heat-resistant silicone.
If the riser is laid directly through the ceiling, around the pipe it is necessary to clear and remove the damaged layer of cement mortar as deep as possible (avoiding penetration into the neighboring apartment). Then it is recommended to wrap the base of the pipe with sound-insulating material (for example) and cement the damaged section of the floor and / or ceiling. Surplus insulating material is cut off and the joint is sealed with silicone sealant.

3. Joints between floor slab and wall

Deep cracks very often appear in the places where the floor slab joins the walls. This is due to poorly executed construction joints and the low quality of the leveling floor screed. Cracks and cavities that form over time can serve as a good conductor of sound from the next apartment.

What to do?
Remove the skirting boards around the room. If possible, use a chisel and a hammer to make a seam 30-50 mm wide along the walls in the floor to the full depth of the screed. Fill the joint with fresh sand-cement mortar. After the grout dries, seal the joint with SoundGuard Seal 310 non-hardening silicone sealant.
If the apartment has parquet flooring and partial dismantling of the screed is impossible, then just carefully fill the expansion joint between the wall and the edge of the parquet flooring with silicone sealant. Then secure the skirting boards in place.

4. Joints between the slabs "Wall-ceiling" and "Wall-Wall"

Long-term operation of panel houses, as a rule, leads to the formation of deformation cracks between reinforced concrete slabs of walls and ceilings. These cracks are "life companions" of almost all residents of panel houses. Very often they hide behind wallpaper and do not violate the appearance of a residential apartment. However, these cracks can serve as a conduit for noise from the neighboring apartment.

What to do?
Remove the old wallpaper. Sew up the joints between the concrete panels. Fill the resulting voids and cavities with gypsum plaster or cement mortar. After the putty has dried, coat all wall-to-wall and wall-to-ceiling joints with SoundGuard Seal 310 acrylic sealant. After removing excess acrylic sealant, you can paint or re-wallpaper the room.

5. Electrical installation boxes

Junction boxes for connecting electrical cables are usually located under the ceiling in the central part of the apartment walls. Often they are hidden under the wallpaper, but they can be easily detected by the “tapping method”. Very often, junction boxes are installed in through-holes in the walls and covered with thin plastic covers.

What to do?
It is recommended to perform sound insulation of installation boxes by analogy with electrical outlets, but always with the assistance of an electrician. It is not recommended to twist electrical cables yourself.

Silence in an apartment is a guarantee of healthy sleep and not shattered nerves. But it is very difficult to achieve complete silence in a modern apartment building. To get rid of noise, you need to carry out a set of works on partial or complete soundproofing of your apartment, and this requires significant financial costs and time. But if the desire to live in silence is more expensive for you, then we advise you to read our article, from which you will learn how to isolate your apartment from extraneous noise and what materials to use at the same time.

Before we start soundproofing an apartment, let's understand the types and sources of annoying noise. Indeed, in order to get rid of noise, sometimes it is enough to isolate a certain element of the apartment's structure and is not spent on complete soundproofing.

There are two types of noise:

• Wave noise - transmitted through the air, from the source to the eardrum, using sound waves. Wave noise includes loud music, high-pitched conversation, dog barking, and so on.
• Vibration noise- transmitted by vibrations along the walls, emanating from the source. Vibration noise includes - hitting the wall with a sledgehammer, the operation of a hammer drill or washing machine.

Now let's deal with noise sources:

• Noise from the street - comes mainly through the windows. The sound of screeching brakes, the voices of screaming children and grandmothers, the hum of a flying plane - all this is the noise coming from the street. You can get rid of street noise by installing high-quality triple-glazed windows. Curtains made of dense material can serve as an additional sound-insulating element.
• Entrance noise - comes through the front door. In order not to hear the sounds of a working elevator or neighbors swearing on the landing, it is enough to soundproof the front door. In addition to covering the door with sound-absorbing materials, it is necessary to install seals between the door leaf and the frame, otherwise the noise insulation will be ineffective.
• Noise from adjacent apartments- enters through walls, through sockets and gaps between floor slabs. Noise from neighbors is the most common reason for wanting to soundproof an apartment. If there is only one source of constant annoying noise, then it is enough to soundproof the walls adjacent to the source. If you are unlucky, and noisy neighbors surround you from all sides, then in this case, you will have to do complete soundproofing of the apartment.
• Noise from your apartment- comes to neighbors in the ways listed above and annoys them. If you often have noisy companies, if you are a musician rehearsing at home, if you have children who love to jump and have loud fun, then for the sake of maintaining good relations with neighbors, it is better for you to soundproof the walls, ceiling and floor, without waiting for the visit of the district police officer.

Soundproofing methods

Sound insulation of walls, ceiling and floor is done in three ways:

• • Frame - this method involves installing guides on the wall for installing cladding panels. Sound-absorbing material is placed between the guides, after which sound-reflecting panels are installed. In some cases, such as in recording studios, the panels do not have a reflective surface, but an absorbing surface.
    The advantage of this method is the high quality of sound insulation, and the disadvantages are the high cost of work and a reduction in the usable space of the room.

• • Installation of plates and membranes- in this method, the sound-insulating material is installed or glued directly to the wall, floor or ceiling. Then the slabs and membranes are plastered or covered with thin panels.
    With proper adherence to the technology of installing plates or membranes, the quality of sound insulation is not inferior to the frame method, and the financial costs are significantly less.

• "Floating" - this method is used only for soundproofing the floor. The insulating material is spread on the floor and covered with a waterproofing layer. A reinforced screed is made on top and a floor covering is installed. The advantage of this method, in the absence of rigid mountings, which contributes to a significant reduction in vibration noise.

Soundproofing materials

Soundproofing materials are of the following types:

Soft insulation

Soft sound insulation includes materials from different types of fibers sold in rolls:

• • Soundproof membranes- there are self-adhesive and ordinary, made of synthetic and natural fibers. Suitable for walls, ceilings and floors. Separately for floor insulation, membranes are produced from bitumen polymers with a layer of polyester felt.

• • Needle punched fiberglass material- It is used for finishing walls and ceilings. Insulation is well suited for frame structures.

• • Polyester backing- made specifically for "floating" floors, perfect as a substrate under the laminate.

• Mineral wool- a simple and affordable heat and sound insulation material used in the frame insulation method.

MaxForte SoundPro

A new generation material, created taking into account theoretical developments in the field of building acoustics and practical experience in installation work. With a minimum thickness of 12 mm, the material provides maximum protection against airborne and impact noise and is indispensable in small apartments, where every centimeter counts! Completely environmentally friendly: does not contain adhesives and other chemicals. MaxForte-SoundPRO is ideal for any premises: apartments, kindergartens, schools. Also, the material acts as fire protection (completely non-combustible) and thermal insulation!

MaxForte EcoPlita 60

Material MaxForte-EKOplita is made of 100% volcanic rock (without impurities, slag and blast furnace waste). MaxForte-EKOplita has excellent acoustic properties, which makes it possible to successfully use this product in soundproofing the most acoustically difficult objects: multiplex cinemas, recording studios, listening rooms, home theaters, etc.

MaxForte EcoAcoustic

Made from 100% polyester (polyester fibers) without the addition of adhesives. For shaping, an innovative technology of thermal bonding is used (melting the polyester fibers themselves). The material is made on modern equipment SIMA (Italy); only primary raw materials are used in the production. EcoAcoustic is completely safe for human health: the plates do not emit and do not contain harmful substances!

Sealant MaxForte

MaksForte sealant is intended for sealing joints, joints, holes in soundproofing walls and ceilings, as well as in structures of "floating" floors and floors on logs. Due to its low modulus of elasticity, the sealant has excellent vibroacoustic properties and provides a significant reduction in vibration load between building structures, acting as a damping layer.

VibroStop Pro

An anti-vibration mount designed to combat impact noise penetrating floor slabs and walls. The use of VibroStop PRO can significantly reduce the vibration load on the profile and provide additional sound insulation of the ceiling and walls at a level of 21 dB.

MaxForte Shumoizol

The rolls are spread with the soft side on the floor, the edges are brought onto the walls. After work, all excess can be easily cut off. The joints between the rolls are coated with MaksForte Hydrostop liquid rubber.

Advantages:

1. Decrease in the level of impact noise 27 dB.
2. The material does not tear or crack during installation, due to the addition of imported plasticizers to the composition.
3. Can be used as a waterproofing material, the material is waterproof.
4. The material can be used for dry screed and under laminate flooring.

MaxForte SoundPro

Installation is carried out by analogy with Shumoizol, the edges are put on the walls, the rolls themselves are laid with an overlap of 5 cm, and the joints between them are coated with MaxForte Hydrostop liquid rubber. Next, the construction film is laid, this is done so that the screed solution does not penetrate the sound insulation layer.

Advantages:

1. Decrease in the level of impact noise 34 dB.
2. Reduction of airborne noise level 10 dB.
3. The rolls are resistant to moisture. Not subject to decay.
4. Belongs to the class of sound absorption "A" out of five possible.
5. The material does not attract rodents.

MaxForte EcoPlita 110 kg / m 3

To begin with, the MaxForte tape is laid along the perimeter in two layers. Plates are placed on the floor close to each other and covered with construction film.

Advantages:

1. Belongs to the class of sound absorption "A" out of five possible.
2. Completely non-flammable material.
3. Does not contain phenol resins.
4. Due to the optimally selected density of 110 kg / m3, the screed does not spring and will not burst over time.
5. Sound insulation at the level of 36-38 dB.

If it so happens that the apartment already has a screed, or it is an old housing stock, where the floor simply cannot withstand the heavy weight of the screed, an effective option is the floor on the logs.

Solid insulation

The type of solid sound insulation includes simple slabs and combined panels made of sound-absorbing materials:

• • Combined panels- represent a structure of two sheets and an interlayer. Sheets are made from particle board, cork or synthetic materials. Quartz sand and mineral wool are often used as an interlayer.

• • Basalt slabs- are made of basalt fiber. Additionally, the boards can be treated with a water-repellent compound.

• • Polyester fiber boards- synthetic sound insulation, easily cut to size, widely used in frame construction.

• • Staple weave fiberglass slabs- designed to fill the interprofile space, insulate suspended ceilings and frames installed on walls.

• • Cork slabs - made from cork fiber. Wall panels and cork laminates can be installed without additional soundproofing materials.

• Foam boards- the cheapest and most widely known material for sound insulation. Foam plates are inferior in sound insulation quality to more modern materials, but due to their affordable price, they remain a popular option for budget repairs.

Handy soundproofing

Few people know that some interior items can serve as good sound absorbers and reduce the noise level by 20-30 percent:

• • A large rug, whether laid on the floor or hung on the wall, can significantly reduce the level of incoming or outgoing noise.

• • Furniture wall- installed along a common wall with neighbors, will save you from loud noise, turning it into a soft hum.

• Thick curtains- are able to muffle sounds coming from the street.

Sound insulation of walls, ceiling and floor

Soundproofing technologies for floors, walls and ceilings differ from each other, therefore, we will consider each process separately.

Soundproofing the floor

The soundproofing of the floor is made to block the noise coming from the apartment located on the floor below, or vice versa, so that the noise produced in your apartment does not annoy the neighbors from below. To insulate the floor, you can use the "floating" floor method, or make a frame from a log.

In the first option, you need to spread the soundproofing material over the entire surface of the floor, then make a concrete screed. After that, a laminate or other type of flooring is laid on the screed. In the frame method, it is necessary to make a crate from wooden bars (lag). Insulating material is laid between the lags, the field of this crate is closed by chipboard or boards. To reduce vibration noise, it is recommended to put special vibration damping gaskets under the logs.
Detailed article.

Soundproofing walls

You can block sounds coming from your neighbors' apartments by soundproofing adjacent walls. Please note that it does not make sense to insulate all walls in the apartment, including internal partitions.
For wall insulation, you can use self-adhesive soundproofing membranes, combination panels or slabs installed in a special frame. Keep in mind that the thicker the soundproofing layer, the less usable area of ​​your apartment will remain.
Another important factor in the sound insulation of walls is through sockets, in order to block sounds coming through them, you need to fill the empty space between your outlet and your neighbor's outlet with soundproofing material, for example, foam.
Detailed.

Ceiling soundproofing

For soundproofing the ceiling, it is better to choose lightweight materials that will not peel off due to their own weight or heavily load the ceiling frame.
If you already have a false ceiling installed, then you just need to remove the panels and install the insulation on the main ceiling, and then reinstall the panels.

Remember the "golden" rule - sound insulation is much easier and cheaper to do before finishing work than after finishing the renovation!

Every person, regardless of their occupation, needs regular rest. For many people, the main vacation spot is an apartment, which, unfortunately, is not always able to provide a level of comfort suitable for this. The reason is simple - in most apartments, the isolation of extraneous sounds is at such a level that there can be no question of any kind of rest. Renovation, a party or a crying baby - the sounds are heard so clearly, as if they are heard not from neighbors, but in your own apartment. In such situations, additional noise insulation of the apartment, in particular of the ceiling and walls, usually saves.

Soundproofing in an apartment should be carried out comprehensively, if you ignore at least one small area, extraneous sounds can easily penetrate through it into your home.

Where to begin

Any serious work always starts with a careful planning. First you need to decide on the available budget, which you are ready to allocate for soundproofing activities. After that, you need to decide what exactly you will work on: the entire room or its individual elements (for example, the ceiling and walls).

Soundproofing the floor

It is best to start soundproofing a room from the floor. First, try to find all the holes and crevices that need to be carefully caulked. It is not difficult to find them - they are usually located at the joints of the slabs. Fill the gaps with a soft soundproofing material (for example, mineral wool).

This is followed by the installation of timber logs on the floor, the cells of which correspond to the size of the mineral wool slabs. A gasket made of technical cork is laid under the logs, and mineral wool slabs with a thickness of about 45-50 mm are placed in the resulting mesh.

Floor soundproofing scheme

Then chipboard slabs are laid on the created coating and screwed to the lags with self-tapping screws. This is followed by either laying the carpet or pouring a concrete screed (do not forget about the impregnation of the beams with special protective compounds). On this, the process of soundproofing the floor can be considered almost complete. The gap between the walls and the joists is carefully filled with mineral wool and should not be more than 20 mm, otherwise extraneous sounds can penetrate through these holes into your home.

Noise insulation of walls in the apartment

The process of soundproofing walls is somewhat similar to soundproofing a floor, but there are still some differences. First of all, you need to get rid of all defects and irregularities that are present on the working surface. In addition, sockets, slots, gaps between pipes and ceilings need careful insulation. An elastic sealant can be used to handle the pipes.

Scheme of soundproofing walls using drywall and using a Knauf vibration profile

After completing this stage, you can start the main work. To begin with, a frame of wooden or metal profiles is installed on the walls, to which plasterboard slabs will be attached in the future. Mineral wool is laid between the drywall and the main surface, and a thin layer of sound-insulating material is laid under the profiles.

Soundproofing the ceiling in the apartment

High-quality soundproofing of an apartment is not complete without work on the ceiling. Many people believe that in such cases it is best to use a suspended ceiling, but in reality, a stretch structure will give the best results. At the same time, plates of fiberglass or mineral wool should be attached to the main ceiling, which will further enhance the effect. The stretch ceiling itself is capable of absorbing up to 38 dB.

Ceiling soundproofing scheme

Naturally, in addition to mineral wool, you can use any other sound-absorbing materials that are of great variety today.

1. Isoplat. A material produced in the form of slabs made from fibers of coniferous trees. In its manufacture, glue and chemical additives are not used.
2. Izolon. It is a foamed cross-linked polyethylene, that is, the molecules form a single lattice. It is usually produced in rolls that are used as a backing for wallpaper.
3. Isotex (softboard). The basis of this material is soft fiberboard boards. It belongs to the category of environmentally friendly materials, since only natural components are used in its manufacture. It perfectly absorbs any noise, which allows it to become an excellent material for almost all soundproofing works.
4. Ecowool. This sound insulator contains about 80% cellulose (waste paper and special additives that improve the quality of the material). Ecowool is not afraid of the effects of rodents and fungi, therefore it is ideal for insulating walls and ceilings.
5. Penotherm. In the manufacture of this material, expanded polypropylene is used, the quality of which has been improved due to the use of special additives. It has excellent impact sound insulation properties, making it perfect for soundproofing floors.

Read also

Skew in the electrical network of a private house

The main mistakes when soundproofing an apartment

Unfortunately, no one is immune from mistakes, and during work on soundproofing people can sometimes make very annoying mistakes, which nullify all efforts.

Electrical outlets

One of the most likely sources of noise from neighbors entering your apartment may be an ordinary socket, the installation of which fell on the wall between apartments. The reason is that some reinforced concrete wall slabs, even at the time of production, provided for the presence of through holes, where the installation of electrical accessories would take place.

In such cases, builders simply need to install outlets in two adjacent apartments, while leaving a through channel, which will be the source of extraneous noise penetration.

Here it is recommended to dismantle the electrical outlet and the junction box (of course, observing all safety rules). It is likely that in the process you will see the bottom of the mounting box of another outlet. A layer of mineral wool, basalt cardboard or asbestos fabric must be placed in the hole. After that, the hole is carefully sealed with cement mortar or plaster putty (remember to leave room for the subsequent installation of your electrical outlet). When carrying out these works, it is advisable to resort to the help of a professional electrician.

Remember that it is highly discouraged to use polyurethane foam without further plastering to seal the hole, since this combustible material is not a sound insulator.

Electrical installation boxes

Junction boxes, which are designed to connect electrical cables, are in most cases located in the central part of the inter-apartment walls under the ceiling. Usually they are hidden under the wallpaper, so they can only be found by the "tapping" method. In addition, junction boxes are often placed in through-holes in the walls, covered with thin plastic covers.

Soundproofing of junction boxes is carried out using the same technology as for electrical outlets. At the same time, the help of an electrician in this case will already be a prerequisite, since it is highly discouraged to carry out these works on your own.

Risers for heating and water supply systems

In accordance with building codes, the risers of water supply pipelines and should be routed through using vibration-insulated sleeves. To do this, it is necessary to install a metal pipe in the ceiling, the diameter of which is larger than that of the riser. The gap between the pipes is filled with a non-combustible sound-absorbing material, additionally sealing with a non-hardening sealant.

But in reality, these works are sometimes not performed - they simply forget about the use of mineral wool or sleeves. As a result, after several years of operation, gaps are formed between the floor slab and the riser pipe, which are sources of not only extraneous noise, but also unpleasant odors.

There are two methods that can be used to solve this problem. In the event that the riser passes through the liner in the sleeve, then you need to carefully seal the gap between the riser and the sleeve using heat-resistant silicone sealant. If the riser passes directly through the ceiling, then next to the pipe it is necessary to thoroughly clean and remove the damaged layer of cement mortar to the maximum depth, not allowing it to fall into someone else's apartment.

After that, the base of the pipe is wrapped with sound-insulating material and the damaged area is cemented. Excess sound insulator is removed, after which the joint is sealed with silicone sealant.

Joints between floor slab and walls

Deep cracks are generally not uncommon in areas where floor slabs are adjacent to walls. The main reason is poor quality joints and low quality leveling screed. Cracks that appear after a certain period of operation become an excellent conductor of sounds from neighboring apartments.

To fix the problem, first of all, it is necessary to dismantle all the skirting boards around the perimeter of the room. If you can, then using a hammer and a chisel, make a seam in the floor (along all walls), the width of which is about 30 mm for the entire depth of the screed. Then this seam must be filled with a cement-sand mixture. Once the grout is dry, the joints are sealed with a non-hardening silicone sealant.

In the event that partial dismantling of the screed is impossible, for example, due to the presence of parquet, the expansion joint is filled with silicone sealant. After that, you need to attach the skirting boards in place.

Joints between wall-to-wall and wall-to-ceiling slabs

In most cases, long-term operation is accompanied by the formation of deformation cracks located between the floors and reinforced concrete slabs. Basically, these cracks are under the wallpaper, so it is not always possible to notice them in time, and determine the source of the appearance of extraneous noise in the apartment.

First you need to remove the old wallpaper and embroider the joints between the concrete panels. The resulting voids are filled with a cement mixture or plaster putty. When the putty is dry, all joints are thoroughly coated with acrylic sealant. Excess sealant is removed, and the room is pasted over with new wallpaper.

Window

Windows can be a source of penetration into the dwelling not only of traffic noise, but also of the sounds of a music center from a neighboring apartment. Replacing old wooden windows with modern metal-plastic window structures will help to eliminate this problem. However, it should be noted that certain noise from indoor sources may become more pronounced, which occurs as a result of the lack of masking of these sounds by street noise.

Modern plastic windows quite reliably solve the problem of the penetration of extraneous noise from the street into the apartment

In this case, it is necessary to carry out a number of the following actions:

• Replacing the existing 4 mm glass with thicker ones, for example, 5 or 6 mm, will help to increase the quality of sound insulation of the old window.
• Before starting the installation of new glass, the installation places of the window sash along the entire perimeter should be carefully coated with transparent silicone sealant. Then the glass is pressed tightly into the silicone "roller" formed in the flap. After that, the installation of glazing beads and the removal of excess silicone are carried out.
• Along the contour of the vestibule in each window sash, a rubber seal is attached, which has a section in the shape of the letter "D". If as a result of this, the window becomes worse to open, you need to seek help from a carpenter.

It is highly discouraged to level the window slopes with drywall sheets, since resonance phenomena formed in the air cavities can cause a decrease in the sound insulation of the window. In these cases, it is best to use cement-sand plaster, which is ideal for finishing slopes.

Entrance doors

The increased sound insulation of the entrance door, unfortunately, cannot always be a reliable guarantee of reducing the noise that occurs as a result of the operation of an elevator winch or a car (since the propagation of these sounds is carried out along building structures). But, along with it, you can easily get rid of a lot of household noises, for example, the knocking of heels on the stairs or the noise of the closing elevator doors.

To get rid of this problem, the entrance group to the apartment should be arranged in the form of a vestibule. The inner door can be made decorative, but the outer one must be equipped with anti-burglary properties.

Entrance door soundproofing scheme

To ensure higher sound insulation, it is necessary to completely eliminate various cracks and openings that are located in the areas where the door leaf adheres to the frame at the moment the door is closed. To do this, it is necessary that the door frames must have a threshold, as well as a sealing gasket throughout the vestibule, for which it is best to use rubber profile seals.

In most cases, the installation gap between the doorway and the door frame is filled with polyurethane foam, which does not in any way prevent extraneous noise from entering the apartment. In such situations, a complete elimination of the polyurethane foam is required, followed by filling all the voids with a cement mixture. After the cement slurry has dried, the areas where the door frame adjoins the wall structure are carefully treated with silicone sealant, which will further avoid the formation of deformation cracks.