So Quiet Soundproofing

With a new baby on the way, my wife and I decided we needed to do something about the hollow, reverberant wall separating the nursery from our toddler's room. The only thing worse than one kid awake and screaming is two...

We found So Quiet after looking at online reviews and making a couple of calls. So Quiet sent out Brendan to review the site/project requirements promptly, and he put together a detailed and comprehensive proposal within a couple of days. The price was fair, and he accommodated our need for a quick turnaround on the project.

Brendan remained our point person on the project all the way through completion - he was consistently polite, professional and upfront. I appreciated having him as a single point of accountability from the beginning to the end of the project.

The scope of the work was removal of the drywall from two walls, filling of the cavity with acoustic insulation, and then the application of two layers of 5/8" acoustic drywall and reconstruction of the trim. The work took 6 business days and involved four individuals other than Brendan. One guy did the demo and insulation; he returned with a second guy to do the drywalling; a third guy did the mudding, taping, sanding and trim; and a fourth removed all the project waste. All were friendly and polite. The demo and drywalling guys were meticulously tidy, the mudding/taping/sanding guy less so, but not terrible. I probably did 10-15 minutes of clean up in the hall and on the stairs each evening after he worked.

The one hiccup in the project came on day 5, a Friday they had targeted as completion day. We had emphasized how useful it be for us if we could have the space ready for the weekend so that we could do our painting and furniture set-up work. Brendan had stated he was confident that the project could be completed by then, but it was too tight for his workers. They rushed the details at the end, and then told Brendan they had finished. When I came home to check it out, it was clear that there was still work to do. The old baseboard had been reinstalled messily - chips and cracks, blobs of caulking, and even a sharp nail sticking out. Damage on adjacent walls from the construction had not been fully filled and sanded. Clean-up was far from done as well.

When I communicated this to Brendan, to his credit he did not try to defend the work. He simply said "that is not a finished condition" and said that they would rectify things on Monday. He came personally to ensure that things came together with the appropriate level of finish. They patched the remaining rough spots on the walls, and completely replaced the baseboards and quarter rounds with new materials. The work looked good. So we lost the weekend as an opportunity for us to do our own work, but the work ended up being done right with the extra day - a worthwhile trade-off.

They cleaned up relatively well - "contractor clean" is certainly not the same as "tidy home clean", and I had to spend a full evening sucking up plaster dust, mopping floors, and hosing down the porch to get things back to normal, but this is pretty much par for the course with construction work in my experience.

Cleaning up let me perform a good sound test however: I brush-vacuumed the plaster dust off of the walls for a good half hour while my daughter slept in the next room and she didn't budge! My wife and I also tried out our best baby wail impressions while the other one of was on the other side of the wall. It was audible, but only very faintly. This was a huge improvement - before, the wall might as well have been made of paper.

So, all in all, we were pleased. Good service, fair price, good finished product, and most importantly, the soundproofing seems effective!