Reducing Sound in an Alexandria, VA Condominium

Tuesday, May 14th, 2019 by John LeVan

Challenge

This Alexandria, VA customer suffered from a noisy neighbor who kept him awake at night. He needed a way to reduce the noise coming through the adjoining wall.

Solution

Comfenergy used high density sound reducing matting, Rockwool, and sound putty in the construction of a secondary wall in order to reduce sound transmission through the orginal wall. We used the principals of increasing the density and mass of the dividing wall, along with trying to reduce any transmission of vibration caused by sound waves to increase the STC (sound transmission coefficient) of the wall separating the two units.

The results are reduced sound transmission and a quieter environment for our customer.

Project Summary

Engineer: John LeVan

The start: this is the wall before we started working

Step 1: Install sound suppression matting to increase the density of the wall.

Step 2: Frame a new wall with steel studs that do not "connect" to the existing wall.

Step 3: Add Rockwool batting to "trap sound" in the interstitial spaces.

Step 4: Add a second layer of sound control matting.

Step 5: Adding another layer of drywall (you can't see it but all of the electrical boxes are wrapped at this point with acoustical putty).

Step 6: Finishing up the drywall work.

Step 6: Finishing up the drywall work. Speeding up the drywall process to meet customer's scheduling constraints.

Completed Project: The customer wanted to paint it himself. They now have a bedroom that will give them more peace and quiet!

About the author

John LeVan

Partner

John LeVan is a Mechanical Engineer trained at Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. John also has an advance degree in Operations Management from Cornell University.

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Reducing Sound in an Alexandria, VA Condominium

Challenge

Solution

Project Summary

About the author

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