Do-it-yourself soundproofing the ceiling in the apartment

One of the urgent problems of residents of apartment buildings is insufficient sound insulation. Interfloor ceilings allow you to clearly hear loud music, noise when moving furniture or when objects fall on the floor. Residents are involuntarily forced to listen to the details of family scandals among their neighbors, and carrying out repairs in adjacent apartments using powerful tools completely destroys the comfort of the home. High-quality sound insulation of the ceiling and walls will help to solve this problem, so as not to suffer from noisy neighbors in the future, and the sounds from your apartment will not be distributed to adjacent rooms.

Most of the noise is transmitted through floors. Far from every day they drill walls or hammer something in them. But on the floor they walk every day, voluntarily or involuntarily lower various objects on it, move furniture. How to make a soundproofing of the ceiling and is it possible to do this work without serious financial costs with your own hands? It is, moreover, that often the increase in sound insulation is combined with the solution of another problem -

ceiling insulation.

What materials are used for sound insulation?

By the nature of their action, all the elements to ensure sound insulation of the entire apartment and ceiling in particular can be divided into two groups:

• Sound-reflective materials. As a rule, these are trim elements that have a significant mass.
• Sound absorbing materials due to their porous structure. Due to the high air content, they have a small mass, so their fastening to the ceiling of the apartment with their own hands does not cause much difficulty.

Experts advise using a combination of these two materials for sound insulation to prevent the occurrence of secondary noise due to the swaying of the material by a sound wave. In this design, the absorbent materials are inside and covered with sound-reflecting trim elements. An example of this arrangement is the well-known sandwich panels.

Soundproofing the ceiling of the apartment with your own hands can be made of the following materials:

• Mineral plates. The main drawback is that when they are used, the ceiling height of the room will decrease by 15–20 cm.
• Mineral wool. More common in the form of rolls. It is very light, does not burn, does not shrink, but is afraid of moisture, therefore it requires careful waterproofing.
• Sealing self-adhesive tape will take a minimum of space, it is easily mounted with your own hands, made of environmentally friendly materials.
• Soundproof panelsmade from various types of wood, attracted by its noble appearance and environmental friendliness.
• Natural cork allows you to create a unique interior in the room, as it does not require an additional finishing layer.

The market offers a huge selection of soundproofing materials. As already mentioned, many heaters also have sound-absorbing properties. Therefore, from an economic point of view, it is beneficial to combine the process of thermal insulation of an apartment with an increase in its sound insulation.

Types of soundproofing structures

For soundproofing the ceiling in an apartment, one of three options is mainly used:

• The frame of sound insulation boards is mounted directly on the ceiling.
• Soundproof materials are placed in niches behind sheets of drywall, hemmed to a metal or wooden frame.
• Sound absorbing elements are placed under the surface of the stretch ceiling.

The first two methods are most popular, since they are easy to do with your own hands. To install a stretch ceiling will have to call a team of specialists.

Soundproofing the ceiling

In apartments with a small ceiling height, it is undesirable to use a suspension system. It can significantly reduce the size of the room. Therefore, sound-absorbing materials are attached directly to the plane of the ceiling with glue and construction fungi.

The glue is not applied to the entire surface of the plate or panel. Five points are enough: four are located in the corners, and the fifth in the middle of the element. Building fungi perform a safety function. But you can do without them, especially when installing sound-absorbing panels that are inserted into each other according to the groove-comb system.

Finishing, if necessary, is carried out after the glue has completely dried.

Suspended ceiling

Drywall Sheets or soundproof panels are attached to the ceiling on a specially erected frame made of wooden blocks or metal profiles. A layer of sound-absorbing material is placed in the formed niches between the frame elements. It is not difficult to assemble such a design with your own hands.

• Using the building level, the perimeter of the structure is marked on the walls. Its height depends on the thickness of the sound-absorbing material used and the cross-section of the bars or metal guides used during installation.

A gap of 1 mm must be provided between the drywall and the sound insulation boards. Sound insulation should be fixed tightly, but not wrinkled.

• If necessary, brackets for attaching the frame are mounted on the ceiling surface and a special membrane is glued.
• Mounted from bars or profile frame. The distance between the lattice elements of the frame depends on the size of the material used and the finishing coating. The optimal step is in the range of 40-60 cm.

If it is planned to use mineral wool slabs as sound insulation, it makes sense to make the distance between the guides a bit narrower than the width of these slabs. This will facilitate the gluing of sound insulation to the ceiling: its elements will be inserted into the cells of the frame with little effort, and they will not need to be maintained until the glue dries.

• Sound-absorbing material is glued into the cells of the frame.
• The finishing layer is attached. When using drywall, the joints are glued with a reinforcing tape, the seams are closed, the finish is performed. When using decorative panels, these operations are not required.

Stretch ceilings and sound insulation

Soundproofing using stretch ceilings It has only one, but very significant, drawback: it is unlikely that it will be possible to completely complete all the work with one's own hands. For fastening and pulling the canvas, you will need not only specific skills, but also special expensive tools. So the call of a team of specialists can not be avoided.

The design of stretch ceilings itself provides a certain level of noise absorption due to the damping of vibrations by the stretched fabric. Recently, a material has appeared that has enhanced sound-absorbing properties due to the large number of micro-holes.

Additional sound insulation is placed under the surface of the stretch ceiling.

Soundproofing can be attached both to the surface of the ceiling, and in the cell frame. Finishing is not required, as everything will hide the stretch fabric.

When conducting sound insulation, the possibility of such an unpleasant event as leakage from neighbors from above should be taken into account. Most materials will lose their properties upon ingress of moisture and require replacement. Therefore, in such rooms it is better to use a more expensive, but moisture resistant material, such as natural cork. Soundproofing the ceiling in the kitchen using mineral wool is hardly reasonable.

Not always for a good soundproofing of an apartment, it is enough to limit oneself only to the reconstruction of the ceiling. If necessary, conduct sound insulation of walls and floors. But to do all the work qualitatively with your own hands is quite realistic, and the costs are more than offset by the comfortable silence in your apartment.