Wherever I can in the Whitby cottage I’m upgrading to provide better thermal and sound insulation.  One area in particular was highlighted by the other half.  This was the wall between the bedroom on the first floor and the bathroom. When we bought cottage the wall was just hardboard pinned on to some old and unrepairable patched up 3/4 inch timber panelling.  Every wash, flush, gargle and “movement” would wake anyone in the bedroom.   The old wall had to be taken down (with any reuseable bits being incorporated elsewhere).  The first part of the reconstruction was on the bedroom side. This was plasterboard on  2 x 2 inch timber stud work and a few recycled bits of wood. All very conventional apart from the the plaster board being bonded to timber with an acoustic sealent/adhesive as well as drywall screws.

As this is the only completely rebuilt dividing wall I made full use of the oppertunity to route the central heating pipe work, ventilation ducting and various wiring circuits.

Fist layer of the sound insulating wall with the ventilation ducting fitted

A double layer of plaster board adds to mass of the wall but as with other areas in cottage we need to keep the maximum amout of living space. So to replicate a double layer I glued plasterboard to the inside, between the studs before building a totally seperate set of stud work. Space being an issue again on the bathroom side of the wall made for some unconventional stud work to fit around the ventilation ducting

Separate timber stud work fitted around the ventilation ducting to minimise overall wall thickness

The void is then filled with glass wool to deaden the airspace before it’s plaster boarded over.

Rockwool between two skins of plasterboard for sound insulation.

Plaster boarded and skimmed wall