Sound insulation in houses in Riverwood

Hi,

I was hoping to see if someone else in Riverwood estate or beyond had similar experiece as ours and get some advice on how to deal with the problem. Any decent advice will be greatly appreciated. We leave in the semi-detached house in Riverwood. Last summer our neiboughrs extended their kitchen, which is a 3x3 m2 add on to their existing kitchen, resulting in big open plan square room at the back of the house. Like so many other houses in the estate have. Nothing major in terms of scale. However, this small extension that probably brings so much joy to the neiboughrs have made us feel miserable in our house since. For ten years we leaved side by side we almost never heard them through the the party wall except during bigger family gatherings. The wall seemed to be solid and good in stopping any noise. But as it happened they tiled the floor and bought heavy solid wood furniture and now we can hear every pull of their dinning chairs or high stools every time they sit down. The sound is so strong, it sounds like someone is constantly moving heavy furniture forth and back morning, day and evening. If you add up visiting relatives and guests on a regular base it actually becomes unbearable to be in our house. Unfortunately, by whaterver reason the sound is not limited to adjoining dinning room but penatrates into every room in our house, literally every room. You cannot just close the doors in the dinning room and ignore it. During the lockdown I almost had a nervous breakdown because we all were in and it felt like we had no privacy whatsoever. Just as lockdown finished I approached our neiboughrs and kindly asked/begged/offered them to use the furniture pads which they agreed to. But the noise came back again in the last couple of weeks, I guess the pads come off and they are not in a mood or hurry putting them back.

I would not be so upset if it turned out just putting more sound insulation on the walls in the rooms, I am afraid that given the fact we hear it everywhere in the house it won't be enough to insulate just the party wall. We'll probably have to go on the sides, rip all the plaster on the walls as well as insulate between the floor boards? Basically whole house should be ripped and redone. The sheer idea of the scale of work that we may be forced to do to get the peace in our home make me nauseous, and all just because some people are in love with heavy furniture or half deaf...

We need to look for a permanent solution how to insulate the party wall. Maybe somebody had sound insulation done in their houses aready and it worked? Please share your experience and recommendations.