Soundproofing a Domestic Water Box in Lewisham

The Problem

Our client owns a Victorian house in Lewisham and rents out the top-floor bedroom, which has the water cupboard attached to it. A water pump had been installed in that cupboard a few years earlier, so every time water ran anywhere in the house, it created a loud noise in the bedroom. Previous lodgers had never raised it, but the current one found it unbearable, and the owner asked what could be done.

The Solution

We built a soundproof box around the water pump, strengthened the cupboard doors and added mass using Tecsound and acoustic board, then fitted a fire seal to close the gaps around the perimeter. While on site, we noticed the wall between the cupboard and the bedroom was a thin sheet of ply with no insulation at all, so we added 30mm RW3 Rockwool and our standard mass layers to address as many weak points as possible. The noise is now at a manageable level for the lodger.

This job was a good reminder that noise affects people very differently. Three previous lodgers had lived with the same pump without complaint, while this one found it genuinely intolerable. Neither reaction is wrong, which is why we assess what’s actually bothering someone rather than working to a number.