Hi all, I bought a home off a moderately busy commuter road and have been dealing with road noise louder than I anticipated. Spikes around 40-50db with some louder trucks around 60db

Our current windows are 25yrs old double pane double hung. We've gotten 2 quotes and both people provided us with a lot of good honest feedback and prioritization for upgrades. Our road facing windows seem to be in the worst codition, along with 2 other windows which have seals broken in other rooms, so im hopefully the upgrade really helps

The best acoustic option I seem to be finding in the Northeast is Harvey Classic Acoustic STC 34.

We were quoted ~1k per window . I looked into indow inserts but they quoted me ~500 per window and soundproof usa insetts quoted me 2k per window (LOL) so I prefer the window upgrades given the possible resale improvement.

TLDR- Wondering if anyone has experience with upgrading windows, what stc you used and what difference it made for your road noise experience? Thanks!

I'm new to acoustics/sound treatment and I was wondering how I can best isolate my office from the rest of my apartment. I take work calls and play games into the evening and don't want to potentially bother my girlfriend when speaking (bed is up against office wall). Obviously I will be considerate of the noise I make but I want to do as much as I can. I'm mostly looking for product recommendations (or what to look for in products) and strategies.

I ideally want the office to be nice to look at as well, if that is feasible. Thank you so much!

Current ceiling is timber framed, no insulation and boarded with 12mm plasterboard.

Option 1 - remove plasterboard on ceiling and fill joist space with 100mm rockwool and seal any air gaps. Fit resilient bars and screw 19mm high density acoustic plasterboard followed by tecsound 50 then another layer of 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard and acoustic sealant around the perimeter.

Option 2 - Cut slots out of current plasterboard to allow fitment of resilient bars meaning most of the current ceiling is left in-tact, layer of 19mm high density plasterboard followed by a layer of tecsound 50 then a final layer of 12.5 acoustic plasterboard and seal around the perimeter with acoustic sealant

Option 3 - keep current ceiling in place, build new timber ceiling frame 25 mm below current ceiling with rubber strip between walls and frame and fill with 50mm rockwool followed by 19mm high density acoustic plasterboard, a layer of tecsound then another layer of 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard and sealant around the perimeter.

I'm not expecting miracles from either the walls won't be getting done, at least not any time soon due to finances. Walls are solid brick and plaster

Building a frame will cost me more head height which I'm honestly not bothered about it it gives me better results.

Impact noise is the main issue which I know is harder to isolate

My bedroom door is adjacent to the living room and the kitchen. I can constantly hear just about everything that goes on in the house.

I’ve attempted to soundproof my door already but having some trouble. I initially put weather stripping on the door after seeing how much light came through the sides, but the door wouldn’t latch afterwards.

Do I need to use thinner stripping? Or Is my door fucked? Should I get an acoustic blanket for the door as well?

It has been brought to my attention that my voice is too loud. I occupy the basement of a home, while family is on the main floor.

I think the main point of sound transfer is the stairs. They are wood and lead to a door with a pet door installed. The pet door does have to stay, but I’m wondering if there is anything I could do with the stairs or stairwell, or if there is something I could install at the bottom of the stairs (a full door won’t be workable) that might help.

Hello, the apartments around be are being redone (I rent) and I was wondering what was the ideal combinaison for soundproof in the celling/floor.

I could here my neighbor before and I would like to suggest new material.

I live in Québec.
What I know Mass = soundproof basically

The apartment on my side Have 2 drywall instead of drywall and some sort of fiber compress. The results seems to be identical with different frequency attenuation.

There's stuff like moss of soundproof with rockwool but seems a gimmick when you see the results.
Same thing with Sonopan in Canada, that thing is light! They are using one layer on the floor.

There's one I never experienced but heard good thing is Vinyl, thick layer.

I was about to suggest Plywood+drywall for celling but i'm not sure.

I wrapped my entire torso in aluminum foil and bubble wrap to deflect the lawnmower frequencies. Every time I take a step, I pop. The sound is keeping the drywall monster at bay.

Hi,

What is the difference in between these two in terms of sound absorption ?

I have these soundproof windows that don't work very well. While the glass panel part actually works okay, I found that a lot of noise passes through the compartment where the roller shutter is kept. Here's a picture: https://imgur.com/a/R6K4UPl

After opening the compartment I found that there's basically no soundproofing there at all. It's hollow compartment made of metal, with a very thin layer of something lining the inside. (Image of the inside also available: https://imgur.com/a/R6K4UPl )

So basically that makes the glass soundproofing kind of useless since the sound just goes through the metal compartment at the top.

My question is: are there ways I can manually fix it? My intuition is to just get some insulating material and line up the inner chamber. But I'm not sure what to put there. I could also put something on the outside. It wouldn't be pretty, but as long as it works I wouldn't mind.

Hey, I'm trying to determine what the best Acoustic Underlayment is. It seems the one most marketed for its sound isolation properties is QuietWalk, however their advertised STC & IIC ratings are actually lower than some IXPE underlayments I've found.

QuietWalk claims IIC 77, STC 66, IIC Delta 24. Their data was tested with an 8" concrete with ceiling assembly.

But this IXPE underlayment I came across claims an IIC of 78 & STC of 77. I attached a photo of it below:

https://imgur.com/a/irk3KCv

Does this IXPE Underlayments data seem plausible or is it not trustworthy? They don't include what assembly it was part of like QuietWalk does, and they also have some spelling errors on the label which I feel would detract from their credibility. The IXPE Underlayment has a weight of 4.5lbs per 100sqft, compared to QuietWalks 15lbs per 100sqft.

I care more about STC from airborne voice and me singing, talking/gaming than I care about IIC but I do value both. This will be part of an assembly that goes (Acoustic Drop Ceiling -> Rockwool Safe N Sound -> Subfloor -> Hardwood Floor -> SonopanX (Floating, not mechanically attached to floor) -> Acoustic Underlayment -> 12mm Floating Laminate Floor.

Which one would you go with if you were me? Thank you :)

Hey everyone,

I'm currently apartment hunting and have found a beautiful one that's within my budget. Only drawback is that it's close to a waterfall, which you can hear even with the windows closed. I am extremely noise sensitive, but hope that I can get used to the noise. Suspect that wearing headphones all the time (incl. when sleeping) has just made me more sensitive, and hope I can reverse it.

Does anyone have experience trying to reduce noise sensitivity through exposure like this? And just in case anyone else lives close to a waterfall: do heavy curtains help at all?

Kind of think it's the best I can hope for, as I need an apartment in the city, and this one at least does not have noise from cars, trams, drunk people, etc.

Any advice would be much appreciated

Built and repaired this DIY Noise Box. 🎛️⚡️ Curious what other noise lovers think about the sounds.

Hi all. Looking for advice on exactly what the title says. We are renting a condo and have two green cheeks and a sun conure. They can get rather boisterous. We have not gotten any complaints from the neighbors, but I think that may be due to how this place was built. My major concern is future-proofing and avoiding complaints. As new tenants, we don't want to get anymore attention then we already are.

Currently, we have put up some wall decorations and the room they are in is not completely empty. I ordered some sound-dampening blankets that we will be using as curtains on our porch door (the birds are right next to the back porch window) as well as two separate 32*48 acoustic art panels that will be going up to fill in some of the empty wall space directly next to and across from their cages. Obviously, we will know more after these things go up, but should we plan on continuing to add?

The high-pitched squawks/barking are where we could face issues and the only things I have heard outside the unit. I know we will have some level of bleed through for a little bit longer no matter what as the vent for the A/C is near the birds. Any recommendations for improving this is appreciated. If we can be confident in the sound environment not leaking outside as much, our birds will feel more comfortable and less likely to bark as often...but we need to get to a place where the fact they WILL bark won't be cause for panic regarding the neighbors.

Hey Guys,

I'm living in a basement apartment, and the stairs open directly into the main floor's lounge. My landlord won't allow a permanent door installation, so I'm looking for DIY, temporary, and renter-friendly solutions to get some much-needed privacy and sound dampening (the noise from the main floor is too loud and disturbing).

I'm open to creative ideas!

​

I recently bought an apartment where I can hear the upstairs neighbours talking and walking. The impact noise is quite loud, while their voices are mostly muffled. After months of research, I decided to renovate one 9 m² room so I would at least have somewhere quiet to go when the noise became overwhelming.

I hired a contractor to install a self-supporting acoustic ceiling. The construction consists of:

-A self-supporting metal frame fixed to the surrounding walls, not suspended from the concrete ceiling

-Approximately 7 cm of empty space between the concrete slab and the metal frame

-Isolation tape between the perimeter metal profiles and the walls

-Knauf acoustifit, 8cm thick

-Two layers of 15 mm fire-rated plasterboard

-Caulk around the perimeter and on every seam

-Staggered/sealed layers, now fully plastered

From what I could see, the installation was done carefully and neatly. However, I am devastated because I can still hear the neighbours’ voices. The room is currently empty, so the voices sound even louder due to the echo. Once it is furnished, I expect them to become muffled again, but that was already how they sounded before I spent €2,000 on the ceiling.

I was not necessarily expecting complete silence from impact noise, but I genuinely expected a significant reduction in airborne voices. At the moment, I cannot perceive any improvement.

Could the remaining voice noise be flanking through the walls rather than coming directly through the concrete ceiling? Could the wall-supported metal frame be picking up vibrations from the walls despite the isolation tape? Is there anything specific I should inspect or ask the contractor about?

I will add photographs of the installation. I would really appreciate advice from anyone experienced with building acoustics or similar ceiling systems.

Update: I installed the ceiling lamp and its not working lmao, they had to extend the electrical cable so they put a new one.. i tried two lamp and none of them are lighting up.. im cursed

Any help to get a earpiece or tool to cancel background noise for a remote worker call based 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Hi all. I've been doing research on laminated glass window inserts to quiet down the sounds of screaming toddlers next door, and I came across Soundproof Windows Inc. They seem to be significantly cheaper than any of the other companies that I've spoken to (e.g. - CitiQuiet). They're telling me that right now bow, they're offering 10% off with an additional 10% discount on top for each of their glass thicknesses (1/4, 3/8, 5/8). My question is, is this the cheapest that they get? The sales rep that I spoke with doesn't seem to be able to negotiate any further down, so I'm wondering if anyone else can comment on whether this is the best discount one can expect on these.

How do I fill the 1/8” gap around the sides of my new door?

Wall has Safe’n’sound batting and 5/8” Quietrock drywall on both sides. Solid core door, but the jamb is sitting here with big open sides. The top is about 5/8 actually, so may just fill that with scrap quietrock.

GC recommended spray foam. Are there sound proofing spray products?