Hello!
I would like to ask a question to specialists in acoustics. In a multi-apartment building, residents are complaining about hearing their downstairs neighbors' voices. However, the sound does not seem to be traveling through the floor slab but rather through the wall.
The wall consists of two ceramic blocks, each 175 mm thick, with a 40 mm air gap between them. There is a suspicion that the sound is propagating through this air gap from the lower floor. The Rw value for a single block is 42 dB.
We conducted a sound insulation test, which showed an Rw of 56 dB. My questions are:
I would like to ask a question to specialists in acoustics. In a multi-apartment building, residents are complaining about hearing their downstairs neighbors' voices. However, the sound does not seem to be traveling through the floor slab but rather through the wall.
The wall consists of two ceramic blocks, each 175 mm thick, with a 40 mm air gap between them. There is a suspicion that the sound is propagating through this air gap from the lower floor. The Rw value for a single block is 42 dB.
We conducted a sound insulation test, which showed an Rw of 56 dB. My questions are:
- Can voices from normal conversation still be heard at an Rw of 56 dB? This meets building code requirements, but at the same time, the sound is still very noticeable.
- Would filling the air gap between the blocks help reduce sound transmission, or would it be more effective to add soundproofing material to the inner surface of the wall?
