r/Glasgow Tools

We should really put on a sticky for this as sound problems in tenements seems to account for a lot of posts.

Without getting too technical here unless you spend 10’s of thousands of pounds (in effect building a recording studio/soundproof room inside a room) then you are not going to have any noticeable impact on the noise.

High-pitched noises are easier to minimise but low-pitches like voices are much harder.

I have seen people go to extreme lengths by building stud walls packed with sound insulation, covered by acoustic plaster only for the sound to travel under the floorboards or across the ceiling/external walls and come into the flat anyway.

Unfortunately sound insulation wasn’t a primary concern when the tenements were being built and it is just sheer luck how effective it is.

I have had a flat where despite sharing beside people who loved an all-nighter I barely heard a thing.

But have also had one where I could hear my neighbour fart and snore.

There are that many intricacies in the way that tenements are built which make it impossible to identify where all the sound is coming from and even more impossible to block it.

Bass noise can even reverberate and travel through sandstone.

You just need to get used to it or move I’m afraid, earplugs are a godsend.