Cathy needs help reducing the transfer of unwanted sound from a wall in her townhome so she can drown out her noisy neighbors, but she’s just not sure how to go about it.
Here’s our advice: Cathy can try hanging tapestries and other cloth items on her walls to dampen some of the next-door noise. But there’s an even better solution than that.
We recommend that Cathy look into National Gypsum’s SoundBreak XP Wall Board and SoundBreak XP Retrofit Board. The retrofit version is just 1/4-inch thick and has a membrane that reduces sound transmission.
On the wall that she shares with neighbors, she can add SoundBreak directly over it after removing outlets and trim. Then, all she has to do is re-install the outlets and trim and caulk around them.
This way, she’s basically putting a shield between her unit and her neighbors’ unit.