I live in a 1950's cooperative apartment building in NYC. Noise from the people living overhead is one of the biggest headaches (excuse pun!) for residents. Can anyone offer some reasonable advice on how to deaden/lessen the noise of footsteps and music? The law provides that carpeting cover at least 80% of the floors, and our house rules require thick padding, but this is not the solution. Thanks!

Barring major retrofitting, there is little one can do. What is the construction of the floor/ceiling? I'm guessing concrete. Is the concrete ceiling exposed below?

Whatever is done will me a major expense, and a major inconvenience to the residents, but I need to know a lot more about the construction of the floor/ceiling to comment further.

The six-storey building is a masonry & wood beamed constructed building, no concrete. There is probably a space of at least 6" between floor and ceiling. Ceilings have a plaster-type covering. Wood floors.

Are you a contractor? Have you ever heard of or done any kind of blow-in insulation between ceiling and floor. If so, does it work?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

I'm an architect. In a wood structure, blow-in insulation will have minimal effect on sound transmission. Most of the sound is transmitted through the wood joists.

The expensive cure is to remove all ceilings, place sound-deadening insulation in the floor/ceiling cavity, and then construct a new ceiling using resilient channels to attach the gypsum board. (if in fact a gypsum board celing is permitted...I am not very familiar with New York city codes...a fire-resistance rating may be required.) The resilient channels allow the ceiling to "float", in essence, so it does not transmit as much sound as a solidly-connected ceiling.

However, keep in mind that it is VERY difficult to fuly soundPROOF a structure. Even with the above measures, SOME sound will get through.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard Hetzel,

I really appreciate your advice. Regretfully this is a solution I can't entertain. As you say, it would be a very expensive operation. Thanks again anyway!

Not being from the NY area, I am not familar with the codes, either. While blown-in insulation may not be the answer, You may investigate foam insulation. This is "piped" in between the joist and it expands to fill the space. It would mean that you would have to make some holes is the ceilings (or floors if they are carpeted) These can be repaired with some putty and paint. I'm not sure how financially feasible this would be, but it should raise the R-value and that might be a way for you to get a rebates(check on gov. or other grants) -

R-value is of no use in a floor/ceiling assembly. And any kind of insulation in the cavity will not address sound transmission through the joists themselves, which is the major component of the sound transmission of the assembly.

I am not a contractor. I do sell materials to contractors but mainly erosion control & paving. A few months ago I sold some fiberglass roofing material, it is a thin membrane, to a painting company. They used it on the walls of a lab so when the gurneys hit the walls there wasn't much damage. We have sold a similar product with an asphaltic coating to a car stereo store. They used it as a sound deadener. It reduced road noise, as well as vibrations from the sound system. I would imagine that if it worked in a car, it would work in a home. You would just have to figure a way to make it "prettier". The two products are called "permaglass" and "geotac". You could look them up on the internet.

What that product does in a car is add mass to a sheet-metal member to limit vibration, which is how sound is transmitted. That is a whole different problem than reducing sound transmission in a building structure. Unless transmission through the wood floor joists can be interrupted, the sound will contimue to be transmitted.

As the architect stated, the best way to "soundproof" your living space is to de-couple the source of the sound from the space you are inhabiting. This is often done with a combination of techniques, in order to address both low frequency sound and high frequency sound. Low frequency is the throbbing bass sound one often hears in teenager's cars. The wave form for this type of sound is very large, meaning that treatments which muffle the noise source, like fiberglass insulation, won't work for that type of noise, but will work to muffle, or attenuate, the high frequencies, like voice transmission, or like flute or violin sound. A false ceiling beneath the wood joists of the floor above, constructed with steel studs suspended on wire, which is fastened to screw eyes in the bottom of the wooden floor joists above, with double 5/8" firecode gypsum board, and with a heavy layer of fiberglass insulation, will probably attenuate the majority of bothersome noise, of both low and high frequencies, without violating fire codes. Neighborly cooperation will be the cheapest remedy, however.

I really appreciate all your responses. I wish the suggestion of W.J. Parker about neighborly cooperation were the answer! Tried that -- to no avail, unfortunately! This is a major problem in New York apartment buildings. As President of our co-op board for many years, I cannot tell you how many times the noise issue is raised. I am surprised no-one has yet figured out a cheaper/easier cure, other than committing suicide! Thanks again anyway -- to all of you for the valuable explanations.