Affordable Secondary Floor Construction

[pinesrecording]

I have a recording studio on the second floor of an old warehouse building. New neighbours have moved in downstairs and I am having problems with sound leakage/invasion. I hear everything they do down there. Conversation. Bumps and scrapes. My primary motivation is to reduce the amount of invasive sound from downstairs. I can't afford to fully float a floor. I am operating on a limited budget. The following is my initial idea. Any advice would be greatly appreciated (whether this is the most effective way to isolate my space on a limited budget and if my idea will in fact work).

THE PROJECT

The project is to achieve a decent degree of isolation between the tracking room (20' x 30' x 13') and the work place below (a recycling centre). The studio is in an old industrial loft building. The separation between floors consists of only joists and one layer of old floor boarding. There are small holes in parts of the floor boarding where you can actually see straight down to the first floor. The walls consist of 3 layers of sheetrock (1/2", 5/8", 1/2") mounted on resilient channel.

The possible treatment would be to caulk any breaches in the flooring (gaps/holes) then install a layer of 2 inch Roxul RHT 80 insulation, followed by a layer of 5/8" OSB T&G then a layer of 5/8" ply -- floated seams staggered on top of the insulation. Perhaps green glue in between the two layers of sheathing, caulk perimeter of the room. The object is mainly to diminish the amount of noise coming from downstairs.

[Soundman2020]

Hi there "pinesrecording", and welcome!

Affordable Secondary Floor Construction

You might be asking the impossible, there. Isolating an upper floor studio is pretty hard to do, and almost always is not cheap.

My primary motivation is to reduce the amount of invasive sound from downstairs.

Are you sure the sound is ONLY coming up through the floor? It is rather likely that it is also flanking through the walls.

The possible treatment would be to caulk any breaches in the flooring (gaps/holes) then install a layer of 2 inch Roxul RHT 80 insulation, followed by a layer of 5/8" OSB T&G then a layer of 5/8" ply

That will give you a certain degree of isolation, but without having actual numbers to go on (decibels) and more complete details, it's hard to say if that difference will be fantastic, significant, minor, or unnoticeable.

the best place to attack problems like this is at the source, not the destination: perhaps hanging a couple of layers of 5/8" drywall on resilient channel from the joists down below would be a better option.

- Stuart -