Ian Baker • January 16, 2023
How to Soundproof A Bell Tower
The most effective soundproofing solution when soundproofing a bell tower
Surprisingly, in the last few months we've had not one but four enquiries about soundproofing a bell tower, so we thought it would make an interesting blog subject.
Here in the UK we love our bell towers! Did you know that there are over 5,000 bell towers for change ringing in England, with less than 300 in the rest of the world.
First of all...Bell towers were obviously created to be LOUD... VERY LOUD. But nowadays the good folks working in the church, and teams of bell ringers don't necessarily want to be deafened by them while working. So we don't want to stop the bells we just want to reduce the volume levels directly below.
The second issue is weather. Most bell towers have large windows or openings for the sound to float out through. Unfortunately that also means that the rain, snow and everything else can get in.
How to soundproof the floor of a bell tower
The key to soundproofing a floor is to:
- Improve the mass of the floor - this is normally achieved by adding high mass/density products.
- Improve the ability of the floor to absorb sound energy and vibration. Without this, the addition of the mass will have very little effect on impact noise.
- Use acoustic insulation between the timber joists to eliminate sound resonating and amplifying in this sealed chamber.
- Use different materials of high mass. Different materials perform better for different sound frequencies so using a combination of high mass materials will perform better than simply using more of the same material.
Recommendation for soundproofing a bell tower
We would recommend using our SoundScreed 28 solution on the bell tower floor, as this will add 20kg of mass per m2 to the floor to reduce the amount of airborne sound travelling down into the church.
SoundScreed 28
SoundScreed 28 is 28mm thick and is made up of two layers:
1.The top layer is an 18mm dry screed gypsum bonded to a 10mm wood fibre layer.
2. The boards come in sizes of 1200mm x 600mm and add 20kg of mass per m2
SoundScreed 28 also has an overlap join on all 4 sides which means it is easy to install without any gaps. The closely joined overlap also makes it even more airtight, with only a tiny seam, making it even more effective at blocking airborne sound.
SoundScreed 28 Performance
The main benefit of SoundScreed 28 is that it reduces very high levels of airborne sound from travelling to the room, or space below and from airborne sound below travelling to the room, or space above. This is because of the large amount of mass it adds to the floor. It’s the addition of mass by adding weight to the floor which helps creates a barrier to help block airborne sound. The wood fibre layer also adds some resilience to the floor to help reduce low levels of impact vibration.
Learn more about SoundScreed 28
Soundproofing top tip
As the bells are rung from below with ropes, it means that the bell tower floor may have several holes in it for these ropes to pass through. For the best sound reduction, make these holes as small as the ropes will allow. Every open gap is a weakness, so reducing these holes to the bare minimum will improve the soundproofing.
Do you have a bell tower or another unusual place that needs soundproofing? Visit The Soundproofing Store
or contact us via the form below.
It may be of interest to read about other unusual soundproofing projects, such as How to Soundproof a Shipping Container.
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