Soundproofing ceiling of basement apartment, any recommendations?

[Sonos]

Hi, all.

We have a basement apartment in our home that we rent out (yay for house hacking!). I'd like to soundproof the basement ceiling as much as possible so we hear less of our basement tenants and they hear less of us.

Any recommendations on this?

Some details:
1) Our floor is hardwood, so we really can't do anything from our side of things. We love our hardwoods are will not be putting down carpet or rugs.
2) The basement ceiling is insulated, drywalled, and painted.
3) in February, we'll have the basement empty for the whole month, which will give us time to do some soundproofing on the ceiling.

I did some research today and saw that there is sound reducing paint (Coat of Silence and Serenity were two brands that I found). This seems like the easiest, quickest, and most cost-effective option, but my guess is not highest reduction in noise we could achieve relative to ripping out the drywall and insulation and replacing it with soundproofing insulation and drywall.

Anyone have experience with this? Thanks!

[monarda]

Is there room to put a second layer of drywall over the existing drywall? Musicians that I've known have used double layer drywall for their practice rooms.

Do you have area rugs on your hardwood floor? Those will help you.

What kind of sound is being transmitted through right now? Mostly low or high tones? There are different strategies depending on what kind of noise is getting through the existing insulation and drywall.

a quick google search found this general overview

[Kitsunegari]

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[Gr8ful]

If you don't want to remove the current ceiling you should look at adding resilient channeling before adding another layer of drywall.  Make sure to look at acoustical calk to use around the corners rater than mud.  It really make a difference.

If you are open to opening up the ceiling look into rockwool (Roxul) slabs.  They install like bat insulation but are designed for sound deadening.  Then reinstall the drywall with channeling and the difference will be huge.

There are plenty of web sites with tons of info.  Here is a quick like I found that seems like a good start.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YitQQJrksYI&feature=share

[monarda]

Thanks for that video, Gr8ful.  But I don't see how you get around using mud. How do you seal the seams and make it look good?

Firette, sorry, my musician friends hired out the work, probably while they were on tour. They don't know exactly how it was done, just that there were two layers.

[coopdog]

Sound can be very tough to abate since it travels through air, framing, plumbing, hvac, etc and in different ways (voice vs walking require different abatement methods). There is a product call quietrock that is a special (and fairly expensive) type of sheetrock that is made for your purpose. I've never used it, but I've heard it works well. Definitely use the channels as mentioned above in between layers.

[Abe]

Use the resilient channels and two layers of regular drywall, with sandwich of one of the noise-abatement paints in between. You can also add a double-layer of drywall to the underside of the ceiling too for extra abatement. We did this, plus standard fiberglass insulation, and went from hearing our neighbor's TV and music all night to complete silence unless they are really pounding the bass (to noise violation levels; in which case the police solve that issue). It also significantly deadens the footsteps, and he's a fairly big guy. It's important that the floating ceiling is also soundproofed along the edges, where it meets the walls, otherwise a lot of sound will travel through. Our contractors demonstrated this for us and it was quite clearly important.

[Gr8ful]

You use mud for the majority of the ceiling but caulk around the edge.  The acoustic calk deadens the vibration better.

Just think of the whole ceiling touching as little as possible to the floor above.  That way the sound vibrations do not travel through the materials.

[Fishindude]

If this is typical construction you probably have standard 2x wood joists with a plywood or OSB deck covered by upstairs flooring, then drywall directly on underside of the joists, serving as the finished basement ceiling.

Guessing the joist space is minimally insulated?  Full insulation in these cavities would help a bunch, but tough to do after the fact.
That paint you are referring to, won't do much.   

First I would make sure there are no open gaps between upper and lower where noise is getting through; door seals and thresholds, cut outs around duct, pipes, etc.  If so, seal these up first.   Further, if you have a cheap hollow core door at basement stairs, lots of sound get through those.

Secondly, you need sound deadening "soft" materials both up and down.   Hard drywall walls, wood floors, tile floors, etc. don't absorb sound, they bounce it around making things worse.

Some suggestions that won't break the bank:
Rugs or carpet with pads, upstairs and down.
Add "soft", sound absorbent ceiling tile or panel on underside of basement ceiling.
If you had the headroom, you could install a lay in acoustic ceiling in basement with good sound absorbent tile and another layer of fiberglass insulation on top of it.   This will require lighting rework.
Sound deadening "soft" materials on walls; fabric, cloth, etc. -vs- hard drywall, etc.   Could try that paint on walls?

Ever been in a Buffalo Wild Wings BW-3's ?
Those places are noisy as heck.  All hard surfaces; concrete & tile floors, hard walls, exposed steel deck for ceiling, etc.
SOFT Materials absorb noise.

[chops]

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