Deadening sound in a VERY LOUD 1950's house?

[CrazyLady]

Well as the title suggests we have a very echoey 1950's house. It comes with character like squeaky boards and such. We love all the little sounds it makes and such BUT after we get DD to sleep we only have to move on the chair and the baby monitor lights go NUTS. I'm not talking only 2 or 3 lights, whole guage flashes. It has woken up DD several times and I am actually getting quite tired of getting up and down all night after she goes to bed.

What I mean to say is; how can we soundproof DD's nursery without adding carpet? I really don't like the smell of it. We tried a rug but it's having little results. Has anyone had success with any furnishings or such. maybe hanging items on the wall? Appreciate any suggestions!

Thanks in advance!

[LimeSlice]

You can get things that are fitted on the underside of your floorboards which help to deaden the noise and reduce the squeaking. Sort of like sound proofing pads for underneath the floor. They are also used as insulation to help with heat loss.

Furnishings are always good - drapes instead of blinds, rugs on the floors and furniture. Plus you can use door snakes and the self-adhesive foam edging on the insides of your door frames (it comes in rolls and is foam that sticks to where the door meets the jam to help stop the draughts, the rattle and we have used it to add length to the underside of the door as there is often a large gap between the bottom of the door and the floor in old houses)


HTH

[CrazyLady]

The under floor sound deadener sounds good. Do you think it would make a difference only applied to her room or would we have to do the whole house? Her room has only a small under floor access height clearance and the rest of the house can't be accessed unless we rip the floor up

We have drapes but they are pretty light weight so not that effective. going to look for heavier ones after we fork out for a couch!

Thanks for the reply and info.

[NaeNae]

our house is stilted and there is not enough room under it for the underfloor insulation type thing that I think limeslice is referring too.

the only thing I can think of would be wall and ceiling insulation, there are companies out there that do a blow in type thing but its exxy and you need to have an electrician approve the wiring as it goes in wet.

for the floor boards, try a little talc in the gaps as it helps fill the space between boards making the squeak less. aside from carpeet, there are things like sea grass mats or you can do a floating floor over your boards. furnishings etc will only do so much.

my only other suggestion is to create white noise, I sleep with a fan running as we have a similar problem in our room but dd room is carpeted so no issue in there

hth

nae x

[CrazyLady]

Nae, I might look into that. A sparky would approve wiring because it's only 3 months old. Had whole house rewired prior to moving in. the floorboards have gaps alright, they're OLD jarrah so gaps about 5 mm wide. you can see the tongue of the floorboards. i might try the talc in extra noisy areas I think. there are a few worse then others. Poor DP was commando crawling under the house yesterday to check the stumps under DD's room and he said wasn't nice!

[somewoman]

If you're willing to spend the money you could rip out the walls of that room and use soundproof insulation and plasterboard. Between the two they're meant to cut out something insane like 90% of noise. Add door snakes, rugs, talc and you should have the problem licked.

Seriously won't be cheap, though...

[AnyDream]

You could try hanging a decorative quilt on one wall, it will help mop up the sound the same way heavy drapes would.

[Netix]

Oooh, MD, much prettier than my idea! I was going to suggest canite panels. Sorry, not sure on the spelling, but its a fibre board that often gets used for pin boards. Cheaper than replastering (and putting in proper insulation) if you needed a stopgap. To pretty them up you could cover them in a nice fabric and even frame them (and just put a new fabric cover on for a change). Attach to the walls as large panels.

I think one of the underfloor insulations is called expol, and it fits up between the bearers, right under the boards. Its not like batting or anything, its very compact, and helps keep the floor from being too cold (which growing up in an old house with boards, would have been heaven!).

[CrazyLady]

You could try hanging a decorative quilt on one wall, it will help mop up the sound the same way heavy drapes would.

I have a giant indian woven wall hanging on the wall between her room and the dining room. It has stopped a little of the noise.

We have to replaster the room because it's the old rendered plaster on fibreglass back so might look at soundproofing materials. Maybe if we put that pinboard material inside the panels it might help.

Thanks for the input ladies, much appreciated