cheap way to sound proof room?

ear plugs

None of these things mentioned will keep sound out of the room, but will minimize its effects once it gets in there. Anything that increases mass and adds irregularities to the box shape of the room will decrease these effects. Throw rugs, furniture and pillows. Hearos brand earplugs are the best I have found for sleeping. If you want to keep sound out look at it as making the room airtight. Anything air can move through, so will sound. Under doors, leaky windows. The other way sound gets in is through the structure of the walls itself. To keep that out you are looking at physical isolation and increasing mass, which is big bucks.

originally posted by: Stngray
None of these things mentioned will keep sound out of the room, but will minimize its effects once it gets in there. Anything that increases mass and adds irregularities to the box shape of the room will decrease these effects. Throw rugs, furniture and pillows. Hearos brand earplugs are the best I have found for sleeping. If you want to keep sound out look at it as making the room airtight. Anything air can move through, so will sound. Under doors, leaky windows. The other way sound gets in is through the structure of the walls itself. To keep that out you are looking at physical isolation and increasing mass, which is big bucks.

i was hoping i could just put something in the walls.
didnt know i had to have a degree in physics

a reply to: TinySickTears
I live right next to an Air Force base, that's the only reason I know this. I originally went the high dollar route, then said screw it. Went with big soft couch and rugs and wall hangings. I also sealed my windows with flexible caulking. I can't open the windows but it is easily removable when I move. I think it was called moretite. Made a huge difference. I also use an iPhone app called naturespace with an external speaker for white noise. It can get a whole lot louder than a fan. Don't even use earplugs anymore. Also to fix getting woken up for good when going to the bathroom, I hung blackout shades to make it dark in the hallway from bedroom to bathroom. I was lucky in my houses arrangement for this, and when I pull them up they are pretty much invisible. If you can't do that try some of those shades (sunglasses) they give you when you get your eyes dilated. Also look into a thing called the LavNav. Will let you go without having to turn on any lights.

Here are a couple of links that may give you some ideas:

Instructables: Cheap soundproofing ideas

WikiHow: Build a soundproof room

A few items seem to be important:
1. Making the room airtight. Use door sweeps and window caulking.
2. Egg cartons work okay, but not necessarily recommended because of fire hazards. You may be able to get loads of these from a fast food restaurant for free.
3. Hang heavy blankets on the walls. You may be able to find a lot of these at reasonable cost from thrift stores. You might be able to use pieces of carpet as well. You can get quite a few inexpensive carpet remnants at your local carpet store.
4. Mount shaky items, or put padding under items on the floor to keep them from vibrating caused by external noises.

With respect to the bathroom issue, you could try the old-fashioned slop jar or an adult toilet chair. That way you don't have to leave your dark and quiet room to answer Mother Nature's call.

Hope this helps.

dex

a reply to: TinySickTears

Most things you put on walls are really not heavy enough to stop sound. Egg cartons and rippled foam only stop sound from being reflected inside your room. They aren't really an effective barrier. They also only really work for higher frequencies, to stop low frequencies you need bass traps, which are bulky.

Professional sound isolation uses things like lead impregnated rubber sheeting 'curtains', "green goo" expanding adhesive foam (viscoelastic adhesive/caulk) and extra-dense heavy wooden boards to produce an isolated room inside a room. This philosophy extends to even more expensive options like floating a room in oil.

Also sound proofing requires air-tight seals everywhere. Not good for a room that you will be living and sleeping in.

Heff's ideas are far more effective and cheaper.

There are also apps and soundscapes that you can download can help mask outside noise a bit and that are 'relaxing' in nature.

I am an expert in this field so here goes. As cheap as I can make it for you. I am assuming you own the house otherwise the landlord will get a trifle upset.

Remove all of the skirtings and architraves.

Glue low density particle board to the walls and ceiling. Use a few screws to hold it in place.This is the stuff they sell as pinup board. By from a wholesaler, it is very inexpensive and comes in 8 * 4 sheets. Once the glue has set, remove the screws.

If you can afford it, layer acoustic drywall over this using 2*1 battens. Fill the spaces between the battens with insulation.

Buy some Nice mink blankets over the walls for a nice Finnish.

The advice re egg cartons works very well, fill the back side with paper machete and screw them to the walls. You could do this behind the blankets so you don't see them.

Lastly, use a thick carpet on the floor.

If anything gets through that, let me know.

P

a reply to: TinySickTears

hang carpets around the walls, the thicker the better, as many as you can, in mutiple layers if possible. Over the window or door as well whichever is the one the sound is coming through.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Oooh, a thread i can help with (am currently sound proofing at work) andhave done various studios, homes, businesses, tv stations, etc.

There are 2 main types of sound (there aren't but its easier when you simplify), airborne and impact. Airborne passes through a structure, impact resonates through. There are different methodolgies for getting rid of different types of sound.

If it is just airborne sound, it is simply a matter of adding mass / density. This creates an additional barrier that the sound will struggle to penetrate.

If it is impact sound it is slightly more difficult. As impact resonates through the structure, you would effectively have to either absorb the sound at source or you would need to incorporate a break in the structure. For walls, this would mean new stud walls (with sound reducing materials incorporated), for floors it would floating floors and for ceilings you would be looking at suspended ceilings (as a minimum) or completely independent ceilings (for maximum reduction).

Eggbox etc does work but are more for changing sound quality. For example, reducing reverb within a room. As an aside, you will never eliminate sound completely. Whatever yo do (and however much you spend) there will always be an element of sound transfer. What you will be able to do is to bring the sound down to a more acceptable level.

This

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441715771&sr=8-1&keywords=dohm

Works great and can travel with you

Yo, dawg...

Soundproofing/dampening can get hella expensive and take a good couple of DIY hours/days....

In my opinion, I'd start with a white noise generator, or, like Heff said, an old radio, and a set of decent headphones (if you can sleep with headphones?).

Other simple things (also mentioned previously):
try to seal around doors and windows (but how are you going to breath! )
fill up the room as much as possible with bulky, foamy furniture and fabrics
(I liked the one idea: setting up a bookshelf/shelves. Nice and thick.)
carpeting walls works.

Was in a metal band, we got our hands on 10cm thick polystyrene panels (about 1 x 3 metre), they were free. Worked a charm. We bought cheap, cheap duvet inner and hung it up over the panels. The room was 'dead' inside and blocked (not stopped) a LOT of external noise, ie the other metal band practicing in the adjacent room.

Also, if you have ceiling boards and a hollow roof try to find a way of insulating the cavity above your spare room. Can be a difficult/expensive issue to remedy, especially if you have vermin, like rats. eg easiest thing to do would be to layer egg cartons up there, or old blankets, or the cheap, cheap duvet inner I mentioned (just be careful to keep things light enough to not cave the ceiling boards!).... but, not a good idea if vermin have access to your roof. In which case I'd either DIY a plan to hinder the vermin, or get a quote from an insulation company to do a clean job of it.

I'm getting long winded here.

the short of it: it can get expensive, it's hard to achieve pure sound proofing, keep it simple, keep what works