 Sound Insulation for New Condos
What is the name of your state? Massachuesetts
We purchased a newly built condo last August. The building is new construction, 6 units in total. To date 5 of 6 have sold. The Builder installed all the units with hardwood floors, and pre-wired the units for home theatre systems complete with speakers installed in the ceilings of each room. We purchased the second floor unit, we have neighbors above and below us. The sound transfer between the units is terrible. We can hear EVERYTHING. We can hear the neighbors talking. Most of the time their voices are muffled, but sometimes we can clearly hear what they are saying. We assume they can hear us as well. If we can hear their voices carrying on a normal conversation, you can imagine what the tv and stereo sound like! Not to mention the footsteps and general banging we can hear from above. (We can even hear their 2 cats running across the floor - to the extent that sometimes I can not tell if it's our cats or theirs.)
My feeling is that if we can hear their voices coming through it's not a noisy neighbor issue; the insulation is insufficient and we have a construction problem. We talked to the Builder but he did not offer any solution. Are there any building codes regarding sound insulation? I could see where an old building would be exempt, but this is a new building! The Builder claims to have "doubled" the insulation to 33 for the floor/ceiling where the noise is coming from. I don't know what kind of rating he was referring to, I think it was thermal, not sound. At the time of our inspection neither unit above or below was occupied yet, how could we have known the noise would be so terrible? Do we have any legal ground to make the Builder install additional insulation? Please help! | 
11-07-2006, 12:53 PM
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