GetRidofNoise.com

Welcome to "My Neighbor is Driving me NUTS !!!" page

We have received overwhelming amount of phone calls from you who suffer from a noisy neighbor. First of all let me express my sympathy to you who suffer and congratulate you people who have wondered onto this page trying to make your neighbors life easier protecting him/her/them from the sound that you call music but to your neighbor it's just a "NOISE".

First - the least expensive thing to do would be to check if it is not a builders fault you are having the problem:

a) check if electric outlets and light switches on the walls are not directly linked to you neighbors. Remove covers and take a peek inside. If you see an open space behind the switch or outlet that might be going all the way to you neighbors switch or outlet on the other side of the wall. You need to block the passage. For that purpose use something NOT FLAMABLE because a spark could ignite it.

b)Check vents and see if they are not directly linked to your neighbors noisy room. If they are DO NOT just block it. You will need some type of filter material that would let the air through.

c) If neighbors walking in the hallway seem to cause too much noise - check for gaps around your door. Install a door sweep on the bottom to cover gap and/or install a weather stripping around perimeter of the door to make it close more tight. Those things should be available in your local hardware store. If the door is not a "solid core" door getting one will be a good investment.

Second - it appears that it is not a gap under the door or outlets that is a problem. It seems like the walls or ceiling or floor is just not soundproof enough and it just lets the sound through. In this case you have to: BLOCK the noise or ABSORB it.

a) To BLOCK the noise you need a solid material that would not let the air through and would be dense. That would be a "Non Reinforced Barrier" or "Reinforced Barrier" . It is 1/8" thick rubber-like material that acts as a noise barrier if installed within the wall or outside the wall. If you are installing it outside you may also consider "SONEX curtain BB" which is a barrier on one side and foam quilted with a vinyl facing on the other. All curtains are custom made so you will not find prices on this site. But to give you just a general idea - for a smaller project you are looking at about $7 - $10 per square foot.

If that are the neighbors upstairs that cause the problem please ask them to install this barrier under their carpet. In general - if your neighbor upstairs has a carpet it is better because steps are not THAT loud but carpet and padding are NOT good sound barriers. If your neighbors are not that easy to talk into installing barrier and/or carpet - install a drop-down ceiling. Lay a layer of "Non Reinforced Barrier" on the top of the grit and install ceiling tiles. Tiles can be SQUARELINE or WHITELINE. If you are on a bit more flexible budget you can go for CONTOUR tiles. Contour tiles are the foam panels glued to the backer board that will act as an additional barrier for noise plus the tiles themselves will dramatically improve the acoustics within your room.

b) ABSORBING the noise.
Very often it is not the noise that bothers us so much but its echo. Sound bounces off the walls and ceilings and reaches us over and over again many times making it sound a lot worse than it actually is. Absorbing the noise is reducing amount of times the same sound reaches us. That can be achieved by installing sound absorbing foam on adjacent walls eliminating parallel hard surfaces in the room that sound could bounce off back and forth. Sound absorbing acoustic foam is not just any foam. Acoustic foam is "Open Cell" foam that allows the air travel right through. This foam will be more expensive but will be worth your investment. You will still get more noise reduction per dollar invested than you will if you bought a cheaper - not acoustic foam. Please take a look at "Ceiling and Wall Panel" page. There are a few designs and colors available. Some products are available in cheaper Polyurethane foam but if you are looking for a fire"Class 1" rated product - Willtec foam is for you.

Foam panels are easy to damage so if you have children in the house I would recommend the fabric covered foam panels - FABRITEC that are a lot more resistant to physical damage. Foam panels and Fabritec are easy to install by simply gluing them onto the surface but if you are planning to move and want to take them with you you can attach panels with screws or nails. Just try to avoid touching them because nail or screw would just rip through the panel.
The great thing about panels is that you can buy as few as one box so you can keep on adding them to your room till you reach a satisfactory noise level.
Also adding a carpet with a thick padding or gluing some panels onto the ceiling would help too.

Please have in mind that 100% noise reduction is nearly impossible even with unlimited financing but noise perception depends on a lot of variables and even 5% noise reduction may be enough to make us feel comfortable again.

I hope this page did help you put one more step towards successful problem solution. However if you have any more questions please do not hesitate to contact us via email or phone.