How to Soundproof Walls

Find out how to soundproof a wall effectively using Noisestop Systems range of wall products. Soundproof a variety of wall types and ensure you restore peace and quiet in your home or at work.

What type of wall are you soundproofing?

Most of the enquiries we receive are from homeowners with party wall issues, noise from noisy neighbours. This type of complaint has risen dramatically over the years, so we have developed a range of solutions to ensure you aren’t disturbed by a neighbouring property.

Your home or office is probably divided into separate rooms by light weight stud walls. Quite often these walls do not offer enough privacy, our range of products will help you reduce sound passing through this type of wall.

We usually break the solutions down into two options, direct to wall soundproofing panels and acoustic wall systems. Direct to wall soundproofing panels are a popular choice due to the minimal space loss in the room. If you can afford to lose a little more space the wall systems offer excellent levels of soundproofing but will take up a little more space in your room.

Apply direct to wall panels for a slim soundproofing solution

The direct to wall solutions offer a good level of soundproofing against domestic airborne sounds (normal conversation coming through the wall). A popular choice for homeowners as they can applied directly to the wall, so space loss is kept to a minimum.

Our slim direct to wall soundproofing solutions include, Noisestop Acoustic Panel, Noisestop2 and Noisestop2+ boards. You will not need any other products to soundproof a party wall against medium levels of sound between rooms, conversation or background TV noise.

The Noisestop2 and the Noisestop2+ panel are bonded to the wall using plasterboard adhesive. The Noisestop Acoustic Panel is either screwed to the wall or fixed using a strong contact adhesive.

All our boards can either be plastered or taped and filled ready for decorating once installed.

Soundproofing a wall using acoustic wall systems

If you require higher levels of soundproofing for your room and have a little more space to play with, use combinations of products to ensure you get a higher level of noise reduction. We provide some ready to use kits which are great for soundproofing existing party walls, as well as kits to soundproof stud walls.

Soundproof your party walls using either, Wall System 1 or Wall System 2. System 1 is thicker at 85mm in total and offers excellent performance levels of up to 60dB on a wall. System 2 is a thinner solution at 45mm, an ideal solution for homeowners looking for good noise reduction with minimal space loss to the room.

Acoustic walls are installed on to timber or metal stud frames. If the walls can be built free standing and not fixed to the party wall you will ensure the highest level of noise reduction possible, a small gap between the walls will reduce sound transfer from one to the other.

Soundproofing for your internal stud walls

In a lot of homes and offices stud walls are used to divide rooms, the light weight structure of this type of wall means sound can easily transfer between the rooms. To soundproof stud walls you need to increase the mass and create separation.

If you are soundproofing an existing stud wall you can choose to install one of our slim wall panels to the wall surface. The boards can be screwed directly into the stud frame, the Noisestop Acoustic Panel, Noisestop1 and Noisestop1+ panels are a good choice for this method of soundproofing. This will work for low to medium levels of soundproofing, if you need a little more soundproofing you will need to increase the insulation inside the wall.

The best method of soundproofing your stud walls is to remove the plasterboard form one side and use DFM acoustic insulation slabs inside the cavity. Once the wall is filled attach soundbreaker bars to the stud frame at 600mm centres. Finish your wall with one of the wall panels, in the kits we provide we supply the Noisestop1+ board.
We have a range of kits to soundproof a stud wall to suit the thickness of your existing stud frame, Stud Wall kit 50mm, Stud Wall kit 75mm, Stud Wall Kit 100mm. You can use these kits to upgrade existing stud walls, alternatively you can use them against a party wall.

Flanking noise

When you are considering soundproofing a wall one of the areas you should consider is the voids between floors and ceilings. These areas are potential paths for sound to transfer into a room.

To reduce sound transfer in these areas you should fill the floor/ceiling void with insulation. Using the DFM slabs fill the void as much as possible up against the wall. The slabs are 600mm wide, this is how far back into the room you will need to come.
Doing this in these areas will act as a plug to stop sound that might be coming through these voids.

Frequently asked questions about wall soundproofing

Q. Do I soundproof my chimney breast and the alcoves?
A. You do not need to soundproof your chimney breast, the alcoves are usually the areas that need soundproofing. Chimney breasts have extra layers of brick which will stop the sound through that area.
Q. Can I hang pictures and shelves on my wall once it’s been soundproofed?
A. You should be ok to fit light weight things back on to the wall. You should try and avoid fixings that require drilling into the party wall.
Q. Can I decorate straight on to your soundproof panels?
A. Our panels are a plasterboard finish that have a tapered edge, this means you can tape and fill the edges ready for decorating. You can also have them plastered if you prefer.

For enquiries please call 01423 339163, or send us a message via our contacts page.