Reducing Noise Between Floors in Old Building

[Jesse Smith]

I own a 110yr old apartment building, with four symmetrical 2b/1ba units.  Two on the top floor and two on the bottom.

All units have beautiful, original hardwoods.  While lovely to look at, the floors do a terrible job dampening any sound from upstairs to down.  I've gotten complaints from my downstairs tenants that they can hear everything going on upstairs.

I've been reading about flooring options to deaden the noise transfer.  At this point, I'm planning to use an acoustic underlayment and install carpet in the bedrooms, at least.  

What products have you found to do the best job with this?  Any other ideas to reduce noise?  Wall treatments?

[Jon Reed]

Okay! In that case I would not cover up those pretty hardwood floors... those are probably a nice selling feature of your property and plus covering them would only make a very small difference.

If you want a once and for all solution I would get a few quotes on the cost of dropping your 1st floor ceiling height by 6-12 inches and installing a false ceiling. It should not be that expensive and should not take a contractor long to complete. You will just need to figure out what kind of drop ceiling you want to use.. You can actually use lumber and drywall to make a new ceiling... you can use some variant of acoustic tiles... could even use beadboard if you want something that looks more period correct.

However you decide to do it the winning pieces is having them install sound deadening insulation like QuietZone or Safe-n-Sound in the gap between your false ceiling and the original ceiling. If you use a 6"+ thick sound deadening insulation then your tenants will not have to worry about noise from above again.. and the false ceiling will not detract from the rentability of the units.

Win-Win!