Questions on Isolating noise issuses or build rm in rm

Hello I posted a few weeks ago asking for advice on treating a rehearsal room in Kuala Lumpuar Malaysia at my in laws house. I deleted that post after I realized I didn't know what I wanted so thought to start over. I then decided to make it into a live room recording mixing all in one room. So I had a friend design and sketch up treatment from the room. I originally didn't realize the amount of external noise issues until after paying for much of the design. :oops: Now I'm looking further into solving those problems by either treating individually or building a rm in a rm. Room info: 14x21 11 high ceiling is plaster then 2' of space to concrete the laminate flooring under room above the room walls are adjacent to the living room, stair way, small meditation room, and 1 outside wall behind mixing desk is 50 meters to quite road. Walls are brick with concrete render I think you call it on each sides. Outlets are connected via 1/2"pipping Currently the floors are carpet but will be replaced by tile. budget is 6K ish US not including door, floor, and possibly fingers crossed AC replacement. Room is for folk grass light music. First off unfortunately I don't have a SPL meter besides Iphone :( So My current problems are with out measurements and my perception only: -Water Pump on the roof sounds like it's coming from the east of the room is activated whenever someone flushes, shower, ect. Apparently they had 3 different contractors try to quell the noise with some success. So it used to be much worse and is now tolerable, but would defiantly intrude quite vocal and ac guitar recordings. Q. Does anyone know about this type of problem? What Isolation or treatment should I look into. if 3 contractors have already worked on the issue already am I'm looking towards doing a rm in rm solution only? -there are 6 AC fan units attached to the outside wall that cause low hmm but it decently tolerable. Q. So I'm currently looking in to AC isolation brackets, Or would building another brick layer on that wall add enough STC reduction (45?)? In stead of trying to fix these individual problems I'm also thinking of building a room with in a room with brick because it is rather cheap here. I could also get rid of the parallel walls and had the idea of turning the bricks at different lengths for diffusion. I haven't been able to find a post on recommendations for wall angels for building an all in one room so any advice would be great. Thanks for your input

One option might be to open up the walls and ceiling around the pipe and make sure it is damped using a soft rubber wrapping then soft insulation then box it in make the pipe existing within a room within a room if you will. You might end up with some ceiling and wall soffits but that may be much less expensive that building an entire room. As with normal isolation you need MSM around the pipe to be effective. You also need to make sure the pipe is not in direct contact with anything structural and this may require some isolating pipe brackets etc to make that happen. You might have to ensure the toilet is decoupled as well to ensure the flanking isn't coming from that.

Hi Seth, and welcome! It seems like the biggest issue is that pump, and from what you say it sounds like the noise is coming through the building structure itself. Could you get some photos of that pump, specifically of how it is mounted and attached to the building piping? It would be interesting to see if it is mounted on some kind of isolation. Also, maybe you could record a few seconds of what it sounds like in your room when the pump starts up, and post that here too, so we can listen to it? Building that room-in-a-room with bricks might be the solution, but there might be easier solutions, like Glenn said. - Stuart -

"-there are 6 AC fan units attached to the outside wall that cause low hmm but it decently tolerable. Q. So I'm currently looking in to AC isolation brackets, Or would building another brick layer on that wall add enough STC reduction (45?)?" Pictures would be a great help in this reference. Also, your post was a fine starter but you did not mention the material involved in the roof that the offending pump is on. If it is a wooden roof, then get the pump off of the roof....since the wooden structure is the path of least resistance and flanking is difficult to overcome with isolation pucks. The building of a brick interior room is always a good idea in theory. Where it breaks up on you is if there is not enough air space between existing structure and new installation, your mortar can pile up and create the bridge that short circuits the whole assembly. One of the things I have seen folks do is to install a semi-rigid insulation panel around the perimeter as the brick goes up, to ensure that the gap is damped and the mortar does not plug up and short circuit. But directly to that, the weakest link will be the most offending orifice and that is most likely the overhead ceiling that hasn't been mentioned as of yet. To build a brick wall and then to have a ceiling that is not capable of reaching the brick walls apparent stc levels or the hoped for transmission loss levels is going to keep you wondering why you didn't get that pump off the roof, since you will most likely keep hearing it:)

Thanks so much for your help :D makes me think I'm on the right track Here are a few pictures and an audio file Even though the house is mostly concrete, its still resonates fairly well. This morning a contractor came by to do some work on the drive way and even though he was 30 meters away when was chipping away at the concrete with a hand tool I could put my ear to the studio wall and hear it come through the wall before I heard the echo from outside. Though I don't hear traffic from outside. I didn't think about the roof for room in room. I thought maybe they would do concrete like the above. I think the ridige isolation is a great idea because I'm not sure the contractors over here will completely understand what I'm trying to do.

"malaysia/San Francisco " Which one is it? I ask because I can not research the territory based on one or the other to get the basic ground elements. Also...that pump is not on the roof it is inside the attic cavity:)

xSpace wrote:

"malaysia/San Francisco " Which one is it? I ask because I can not research the territory based on one or the other to get the basic ground elements. Also...that pump is not on the roof it is inside the attic cavity:)

The to be Studio is in Malaysia, but I mainly live in SF. My bed room in in KL is bigger than my apartment in SF! Just took the pictures this morning and found that the pumps are below the roof. :D Actually headed back to SF in a few hours. so trying to get all the pictures I can. Sorry I coudn't get a better picture of the pump. I wasn't sure what was load bearing to climb on.