Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Nov 26, 2008 8:09 am Just after some general thoughts from people
For our build we have upgraded our insulation to R 2.O for walls and R 3.5 + sisalation for the ceiling. We didn't add any soundscreen batts as stupidly I thought that the insulation we had upgraded would do the same job and I thought people only upgraded to the soundscreen batts if they were having a home theatre which we aren't. So have we made a big mistake. Is our home going to be too noisy to live in? It is a brick double story home with colorbond roof if that helps. We are having all carpet upstairs with the best possible underlay. I have heard of people adding sound batts between the two floors and also around toilet pipes and in rooms with bathrooms attached. I'm now worried we are going to hear every noise from upstairs if we are downstairs, or if someone flushes the toilet it will send a massive sound wave downstairs where we are watching TV It is too late to add them into the contract as we have started building, we are not handy so can't add them ourselves during the build. I lived in a double story home all my life and I remember being able to hear things from downstairs if say for example my brother jumped off the bed, or someone was stamping their feet, but general sounds of living; TV, walking around the room, flushing the toilet etc I never really heard - or it didn't bother me too much My dad who built the house passed away this year so I don't know whether or not he had soundscreens installed... What do you think? Have you lived in a home without soundscreen batts? Was it bareable? Or am I in for a lifetime of noise? My karma ran over your dogma Re: Did we make a mistake? 2Nov 26, 2008 8:18 am Hey haywgl, sorry I'm not much help...we didnt get sound screening either...but its only me and fiance (for now ) so i'm not to worried about noise atm...
Is it too late to get them if you are worried about it? can u put in a BV? I'm sure you really wanted to, you would be able to considering you havent gotten ur frame/plaster yet... Re: Did we make a mistake? 3Nov 26, 2008 8:20 am A couple of things come to mind here. One is you’re getting older so your hearing will be starting to fail, secondly after a short time you will become immuned to the sounds, no different to living next to a busy road or railway lines. This is all in jest BTW.
Seriously don’t let it worry you; noises will only be an issue if you are directly below them or right next to them, and only then if you let them worry you. Just relax and enjoy the new home. Re: Did we make a mistake? 4Nov 26, 2008 8:23 am Thanks guys
I am immune to my children's noise at the moment in a tiny townhouse so I'm hoping a 42 square home even without soundproofing will make a big difference anyway My karma ran over your dogma Re: Did we make a mistake? 5Nov 26, 2008 8:26 am Bel, I know lots of people put all the sopundproofing in and stuff.... but you have littlies, and more littlies to come..... I like the idea of being able to hear the thumps from downstairs so I know when to check.
DS fell off the bunk this morning... (apparently part of his stunt work ) but I'm glad I heard it.... and would be even more glad if he younger. Am I making sense? I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: Did we make a mistake? 6Nov 26, 2008 8:27 am We used soundscreen batts in the home theatre/games room and master bedroom After 4 years - we're in! Re: Did we make a mistake? 9Nov 26, 2008 8:57 am But, kiwi, of course - what else??
I know nothing about sound batts and we dont have anything like that in our single story brick veneer home here,just standard internal insulations, I was a bit worried that noise between rooms would be much more noticeable than in our previous home which was a 1950s double brick house. But, haven't found that to be the case - I do not have littlies but do have teenager who loves LOUD music - fortunately house is designed so that his bedroom is opposite end of house to ours. I also think you turn off to regular noise, this is a sub-concious body training. As an example, my parents have a cuckoo clock, have had it for 30+ years, it chimes every half hour, visitors comment on it, even woken some of them up at night (it does chime 12 times at midnight ) but we don't even notice its there. And right now as I type, I can hear the TV in the other room, lounge door is open, but sometimes that is good, you can have, say, cricket on and hear when a wicket falls, without being directly in the room. Re: Did we make a mistake? 10Nov 26, 2008 9:22 am Hi Bel,
We originally only went for sound batts around the study walls. This is due to my husband recording music and keeping other 'house' noises out! Since we had a free PCV, as Henley had to do one after the second soil test and re-establishment survey, we added in lots of extras, one of which was sound proofing. We added it between the kids bathroom and their bedrooms (nothing worse than being woken up by the shower!), around the stair well and bedrooms, the MB and TV area (so we aren't kept awake when the kids are older and entertaining), the family and dining walls just for a bit of buffering of the downstairs TV if 'the adults' are eating, and the living room walls with the kitchen and laundry...for obvious fridge, dryer and washing machine noises. We had thought about around the pipes from upstairs to down, but didn't. Where we are living at the moment, the shower plumbing to the ensuite is on the wall next to the bed, and it wakes me up every morning. In the new house, it will be a similar situation for my daughter, and the toilet will be on the wall with my sons bedroom. I didn't want them to be woken up uneccessarily either. It may make a huge difference, or none at all...we will wait and see! Also need to think about the doors aswell. We don't have solid doors, and a lot of noise will travel through these as well. It didn't cost very much to include it all. Another thing I remember reading on Alan's blog was to use many screws on the top storey flooring to add extra stability for the floor, and less chance of movement producing those annoying creaks under carpet. We will definitely be doing this after handover and before the top storey carpet goes in...probably the 2 days when they do the ground floor floor boards. EDIT: Just thought of another thing! The two previous (old) houses I lived in had the older style horse hair plaster stuff, where as the one we are currently in has the gyprock plaster sheets and no internal sound screen. I tend to notice other room noises a lot more now than what I did before, even though this place is fully carpeted. Maybe that's just me! But if my son bashes the wall (accidently of course) it does echo through the walls to the other room. If it had sound batts in it, it wouldn't be so hollow! Just my obsevations! Henley - Wilshire Mk 3 ... I love my house!! Site start: 4th Feb 09 Handover: 10th Sep 09 Blog: http://stormygirlscastle.blogspot.com/ Build Thread: viewtopic.php?t=7166 Re: Did we make a mistake? 11Nov 26, 2008 9:41 am Thanks guys It seems there are some varying opinions - which of course is going to be the case
I thin/k we will be ok, like some have mentioned sometimes it is good to hear a bit of noise. We have an ensuite at our current place and while I do hear DH get up in the morning (damn alarm) I always go back to sleep and never get woken by the shower - even with the door open, so I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. My karma ran over your dogma Re: Did we make a mistake? 13Nov 26, 2008 7:35 pm haywgl It is too late to add them into the contract as we have started building, we are not handy so can't add them ourselves during the build. I am not handy as well and we are planning of getting it installed for us. We found an installer charging $2.50 / m2 for installation and the batts are $22 (R1.6) or $30 (R2.0) a pack. Just wanted to check with our SS who is he planning to get to install the standard insulation as part of the build and might check if he want to earn some extra $$ to install more soundscreen batts. Cheers Re: Did we make a mistake? 14Nov 26, 2008 7:48 pm Hmm that is interesting H, can I ask how much you think it is going to end up costing you to buy the stuff and also the installation (based on the quote you got)
I'm just trying to figure out if we can squeeze it into the budget My karma ran over your dogma Re: Did we make a mistake? 15Nov 26, 2008 7:59 pm haywgl Hmm that is interesting H, can I ask how much you think it is going to end up costing you to buy the stuff and also the installation (based on the quote you got) I'm just trying to figure out if we can squeeze it into the budget Will let you know once i fax our plan to get the quote. I remember house-to-be mentioned that she use about 32 pack of the soundbatts for almost the whole house and given that each pack cover 3.87m2, the total area cover is about 124m2. So cost of buying will be 32 * $30 = $960 Installation of 124m @ $2.5/m2 = $310 Total should be no more than $1270 However, depending on what area you plan to do, it might be more or less. Thank you Re: Did we make a mistake? 16Nov 26, 2008 8:01 pm Ahh that makes sense, and not to bad for the price either
I only really want it between the two floors and next to bathrooms/ensuite/powder room/ toilets Another question for you At what stage would I need to get the people in to do this and also the wiring for future audio visual stuff...I'm guessing frame stage?? My karma ran over your dogma Re: Did we make a mistake? 17Nov 26, 2008 8:07 pm haywgl Ahh that makes sense, and not to bad for the price either I only really want it between the two floors and next to bathrooms/ensuite/powder room/ toilets Another question for you At what stage would I need to get the people in to do this and also the wiring for future audio visual stuff...I'm guessing frame stage?? While the SS mentioned that once the frame is complete, we can arrange to meet on site and we can let him know about the noggings to be put for the towel rail etc etc and he can mark it for the carpenter. AS for electrical, i would guess it would be after the frame as well. We are hoping that, given we drive past the place 3 times a day, we can catch the relevant tradies and get them to do some extra work for some $$ Re: Did we make a mistake? 18Nov 26, 2008 8:27 pm Good thinking
About the extra noggins, I was told by my CSC that we won't need them for towel rails/toil roll holders and would only need them for heavier items - eg. we are getting one in the laundry for wall mounted dryer - not sure how true this all is, what planning on asking SS... Same here - we are hoping to catch a few of the tradies there too My karma ran over your dogma Re: Did we make a mistake? 19Nov 26, 2008 8:56 pm You don't need to be "handy" to install the sound screen batts. You need a pair of goggles, gloves, a hacksaw (all $5 each from Bunnings) and a step ladder. My kids could do it.
Personally I want my house as quiet as possible, thinking long term, so that if one child is doing homework or study in their room and their sibling next door is listening to music or whatever then the sound will not pass through the walls as much. We did every single bit of wall in our house apart from the study/lounge room and bedroom 2/stairwell. Every void that had a pipe running through it was covered as well. We did the whole powder room......what guest wants to use the toilet and worry about being heard??? I've been into a Cremorne that has had it fully installed and the house was great, six kids running around upstairs and not a thump heard. I'd be interest to know what your SS thinks about it, when we asked ours if we could install it he said he doesn't understand why everyone in a double storey doesn't do it, especially between the two floors. Even if I was building a single storey home I'd still be installing them. Kids grow up and they are still loud - just in different ways. As Hysterical said as per my PM to her last night we bought 42 packs from Hutton Insulation and did what we wanted and returned the last 10 packs for a refund. We used 2.0 Bradford Soundscreen (Rockwool) batts, but we paid $40 per pack not $30. There are people on ebay who sell and install as well but not sure on the product. Rockwool is denser and you don't need string etc to hold them in place like the polyester or fibreglass batts. Stormy, someone has been through our entire upper floor and put a million screws (not nails) into the floor to eliminate the creaking Happy at Home Re: Did we make a mistake? 20Nov 26, 2008 9:06 pm Thanks for that Toni.
I know you say they are easy to install - but seriously I wouldn't even consider DH or myself doing it, I'd be too scared we would do it wrong, and I would rather pay the extra to have it done right by someone else. Maybe I could get your kids over to do it for me I see you mentioned that there was a Cremorne that had it and you couldn't hear a thing, I'd love to be able to compare that to one that didn't have it, but again I know that is probably not possible. i wonder if the displays have it installed I think you are right though and it is worth the money and is definatly something we can't change later. I might see what Hysterical comes up with and go from there My karma ran over your dogma I'll look into different shower heads and ask the plumber about some engineering and see what he says. Thanks 2 9578 Unless there were unforeseeable issues with the site, I dont think you should have to pay for contractors errors or poor planning. I'd probably try and be reasonable and… 5 4559 |