I live with my father and we get along because he has his lounge space on the first floor and I have my lounge space in the subterranean lair. It’s a big house but did come modularly in a few big pieces so it is bare bones in some ways.
Most annoying is in my lair, I hear every footstep and every bodily noise as if it were right there. I can’t hear his TV but do hear if he is walking around talking on the phone. His area is carpeted.
What’s the best way to soundproof? The lair is a finished basement with drop ceilings, so would it be insulation in the ceiling? I have electric baseboard heat in the basement and upstairs is hot air from the propane furnace.
Entirely depends on the nature of the floor in the room above. It is perhaps floorboards on joists? If so you’ll need a flooring person experienced in soundproofing. They’ll take the floorboards up and insulate between them and the joists so the sound can’t travel through the wood all the way to your ceiling (and no nails connecting the boards and joints, they are sound conduits too). Has to be done by a specialist.
Without that, soundproofing on/in your ceiling will do approximately nothing.
I looked into soundproofing once.
I turns out that a 3"x3" (yes, INCH) hole in a wall will destroy something on the order of 50% of the sound-deadening.
For most bang for buck: Thickest and heaviest carpet over thickest and heaviest pad.
Hardwood floors are natural sounding boards.
Well, thanks for letting me know anyway! I at least feel better that there’s nothing I can do – a specialist coming in wouldn’t be something he would go for.
This article from the New York Times might be helpful. It describes how professional consultants soundproof high-end apartments and condos in Manhattan, sometimes at a cost of hundreds of thousands. But it does describe one situation where noises heard below a room were silenced by the use of a sound-dampening mat below the carpeting, after a much more expensive solution failed. So the fix for you might not be expensive, although the expense of a consultant might be worth it.
Being an old house, it had real white oak flooring.
Having been a rental following the death of the old (and not wealthy widow), not much money was spent (yes, it was a student rental).
Before moving in, I had it carpeted.
After moving a couple of walls, I had it re-carpeted. This is where the 10# mat and $30/yd (1985 dollars) carpet came in.
The carpet and pad reduced the noise by over 50% compared to the oak floor. Kicking up the thickness cut another 10-20%.
Wall-to-wall is done with no gaps. The only opening will be the stairway (assuming no laundry chute).
Well, thanks for letting me know anyway! I at least feel better that there’s nothing I can do – a specialist coming in wouldn’t be something he would go for.