Terraced house but we’re at the end with very few rooms actually backed against rooms on their side. The exception is what used to be a toilet on the other side of a wall about 50cm from our bed.

It seems they’ve just fitted a power shower on the other side of this wall and the noise last night was quite a shock. We’ve got a pumped shower ourselves with the pump mounted remotely and even with supposedly the quietest pump on the market theres no way you’d be able to sleep in the room next to it or the room below.

What can we actually do about it other than ask them politely to take apart their expensive new bathroom to relocate the pump? The house is rented out and their first proposal has been that they ‘could ask the tenants not to use the shower late at night’ but even if you had some chance of enforcing that I don’t want to be woken up in the morning by this either.

Probably not a lot you can do about it. It’s one of the drawbacks of adjoining houses.

Ask them to remove it.

If they don’t then raise a noise complaint with the council.

To be fair, it shows bugger all consideration for your peace and quiet.

Eh? How long is a shower on for? 5 mins at a time? Even if you can hear it, why not just ask them to not use it in the middle of the night?

I know in our last house our neighbours could hear our power shower, but it didn’t bother them at all.

Record it and play it back to them just to let them know exactly how much you can hear.

To be fair, it shows bugger all consideration for your peace and quiet.

to be fair, they might not have known the bathroom backed onto their bedroom.

To be fair, they could have asked, if they didn’t know, which, however much you’d like to make excuses for them, is unlikely.

unwanted noise can be one of the most stressful environmental impacts in your life. Can you imagine trying to go to sleep and every night, just a “5 minute” shower, whirring and buzzing next to your head. Like a devious weapon of psycho-torture.

Id go nuts Im afraid.

Best go talk to them, maybe, if you can afford, offer to pay towards a super dooper uber quiet thing.

simon, answer my email re the ion e boxx, and i will come round, remove the offending pump and deliver a huge portion of fist pie to your neighbour………… 😉

My sensitivity is due to paragraph 1 of Stoner’s post above. Unwanted noise, ESPECIALLY, if you’re woken or kept awake by it can really drive you up the wall.

Its the one thing I got wrong in the barn build here – the “dab and plasterboard on blockwork” leaves a cavity between the board and the block that extends between downstairs and upstairs, transmitting sound into the bedroom over the kitchen.

The technique seemed sensible at the time, but its only living here that I can really notice the problem. Im seriously considering drilling a series of holes in the wall near the ceiling in the kitchen and possible along the top of the skirting in the bedroom and injecting expanding foam to try and fill the void s. Unless anyone has any other ideas.

Fortunatley we “insulated” the floor void so there’s little noise coming up directly through the floor, just the plasterboard cavity.

So, there’s a gap that runs all the way up from the kitchen to the bedroom? How’s that then? 😕

well it’s interrupted by the wallplate (from which the first floor joists hang) but there’s no damping between the air space behind the kitchen wall plastervboard and the bedroom wall plasterboard – sound can reverb of the plasterboard, wall, wallplate etc and resonate in the bedroom above. I was hoping damping it with an injected fill might stop it.

EDIT Hang on, pic time…

The one we have is meant to be ‘uber quiet’ and believe me it’s unbelievably noisy but then we’ve not mounted it on a wall next to

to be fair, they might not have known the bathroom backed onto their bedroom.

It’s pretty bloody obvious that a first floor room at the front of the house is likely to be a bedroom and pretty bloody obvious that it is a bedroom from outside. This isn’t splashing water (before the changed the room we could hear the toilet cistern fill) – when it went off last night at 11pm it was like someone running a power drill.

Ton – question came through from Moonglu and got a reply today. Thought it might be you. I’m simon@ by the way – if you mailed info@ you’ll have got Mike (I’ve not seen a mail from you).

thanks simon. 8)

How much of a void do you reckon there is Stoner? With dot and dab, I’m reckoning maybe 1/2 – 3/4″?

DD, wrightyson, thebrick etc, any ideas?

With dot and dab, I’m reckoning maybe 1/2 – 3/4″?

yep about that

PowerPoint? 🙂

*blows smoke from fingers*

you knows it.

That was fast 8)

Expanding foam might work – but it’s a bit all or nothing. i.e. if it doesn’t work, then there’s bugger all else you can try.

Best way, if you’re filling a void you can’t see* – is do it in sections. Drill a hole (6 or 7mm will do) but at an angle, if you get my drift. Then drill some more vent holes near it. Use a foam gun rather than a disposable – get the little round nozzle into the hole and start filling at the angle you drilled the fill hole. and wait to see it coming out the vent holes – ergo, your area is filled. Use masking tape to mask off the holes until the foam has cured. Keep working your way across.

*I’ve never had to do this with a glued wooden floor.

Stoner,no fire break?

This kit doesn’t look like bad value – if you don’t have a gun. The cleaner may well come in handy too 😳

12 Cans of Sika Foam for £46.50 with gun and cleaner!

no fire break

wassoneofthem?

thats the kind of stuff, although my local merchant stocks evostick one. I have access to a good metal gun, and I think Ive got some cleaner lying around.

When you say vent holes, you really mean kind of spy holes to know where it’s got to yeah?

I said vent holes to sound more technical. 🙂

Spy holes works equally well. Drilling the fill hole at an angle helps stop the foam squirting straight back out at you though…so I’ve heard.

so how bouncy was your floor then? 😉

Your problem is likely to be the gaps between the floor deck and the blockwork and the plasterboard of the ceiling and the blockwork. If you can get to them caulking them with something like mineral wool forcedinto the gap with a screwdriver to reduce airborne transmission would help (Backing foam or compra band would be easier but being as that is also suposed to be acting as your fire break between the 2 floors sticking something that doesn’t react well to a fire isn’t too great an idea. The problem with your wall lining is that it can act as a resonating chamber amplifying certain frequencies of the sound. Backing foam could be of help to reduce the volume of the cavity or create a horizontal barrier just keep it away from your fire separation

which part of the structure represents the firebreak? The plasterboard on the ceiling?

I cant quite remember whether the ceiling plasterboard abutted the wall blockwork or the wall plasterboard. Does that matter?

And you say that expanding foam is not good to have anywhere near the firebreak yes?

cheers Richie.

There is also flame retardant foam. Just a bit more expensive.

The plasterboard on the ceiling it should but up to your blockwork. The mineral wool sitting on top should also help

You want to creat a seal. If you have to use foam use an intumescent (it will swell up in the event of a fire)

Does this thread win the “most hijacked” competition? I’m sad enough to count, and I make that 18 posts about Stoner’s gap, out of 30.

😉

we had a similar problem when the front flat in my building was renovated. The builders removed all the gas heating and fitted electric (at the request of the owner who rented it out) and as they had no pressure for the shower (fed from an immersion heated tank) they fitted a pump which fires up every time they use a hot tap or the shower. Why the fudge they didn’t just fit an instant water heater and an electric shower I don’t know.

I’ve just ripped out my tank and heating so have added some extra insulation to the back of my (old tank) airing cupboard which theirs backs onto with the pump inside. Won’t stop the noise as you can also hear it from the pipes but will help.

Noise drives me mad. I could hear the compressor in the upstairs flat kitchen when in bed and in this house (out in the country not the flat in the city) I can hear the boiler of the bungalow next door but one when we have the sash window open and the secondary glazing closed.

I have quite sensitive hearing and tend to lock onto repetitive noises.

pfft, Im getting advice payback 😛

The plasterboard on the ceiling it should but up to your blockwork

Im sure it does, I just dont remember.

Right then, if aracer will allow it.. I shall go for fire resistant expanding foam in the voids around the dab.

also worth bearing in mind that chucking large volumes of expanding PU foam about is not a good idea as it’s usually isocyanate based which is a respiratory sensiter and will gas off during curing.It can only take one peak exposure to become sensited and then you really are royally screwed. Not something I’d ever choose to have in my home

so send the kids to grandmas while I spray it about?

anyway, half the barn is held up with the stuff already.

more importantly keep the area very well ventilated and ensure you’re wearing suitable RPE. Have a look on the HSE website -NCO foams are not something to use lightly and I’ve had to deal with folks who now have serious long term occupational ill health through the use of foam products

will do, mum.

your lungs fella 😕

I hear you. dont worry. you cluck like my mum 😉

what does the stuff do anyway?

Isocyanates are powerful irritants to the mucous membranes of the eyes and gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts. Direct skin contact can also cause marked inflammation. Isocyanates can also sensitize workers, making them subject to severe asthma attacks if they are exposed again even to very low concentrations or chemically similar compounds. Death from severe asthma in some sensitized subjects has been reported. Workers potentially exposed to isocyanates who experience persistent or recurring eye irritation, nasal congestion, dry or sore throat, cold-like symptoms, cough, shortness of breath, wheezing, or chest tightness should see a physician knowledgeable in work-related health problems.