[jacads]

I am going to be framing my basement in the next month and have 2 questions as far as soundproofing from the living room up above what is the best value? Is it better to use some sort of insulation or some other material to diminish sound from the main floor? I just want to eliminate or diminish the foot traffic noise and Television etc that might come through.

What type of insulation should I use between the 2x4's and the block wall basement? Do I also need to put plastic between the insulation and the drywall?

Thanks,

Jacads

 

[slowjo]

Hey,
My first post here, but I am in the audio engineering business so i can offer some suggestions on your problem.

First of all the only way to effectively get rid of the foot steps and such from upstairs is to decouple the floor from the new ceiling. How high your ceilings are and how much headroom you want will make a difference. You'll want about 8-12" of space between the upstairs floor and your new ceiling. So you will be sacrificing some headroom because what you need to do is install a separate ceiling completely independent of the floor above. A simple tile drop ceiling wont be very effective at all. Framing a separate ceiling and using mass to isolate. 3/4 drywall (two layers is often used in recording studios) is a good sound insulator. You can also put same fiberglass batting in the floor joists to help, but it wont do much but eliminate some High Frequency sound. You will still here footsteps and pretty much everything if you use fiber glass alone, as it probably wont absorb the low frequencies or mid frequencies enough. You can get into using some sealant between the layers of drywall and the framing studs as well. That is used in studios as well.