To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

soundproofing ideas

crewchief888

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
13,739
Location
NW indiana
i'm looking for an inexpensive way to add some soundproofing in the floor of my house.

we have wood flooring on the main floor
basement downstairs is kinda game/tv room, getting annoying that we can hear the tv downstairs all the time, and it's not that loud.

any ideas?

thanks guys


:beer:
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

mmhouse

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 31, 2008
Messages
754
Location
Desert Southwest
What kind of ceiling do you have in the basement? If it's drywall, maybe you could blow a little cellulose in there. If it's suspended, you could lay some fiberglass batts above the panels. It it's unfinished (open to joists) there are other options.
 
OP
C

crewchief888

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
13,739
Location
NW indiana
the basement is unfinished right now, just open joists,

no plans in the near future of finishing it off.

funny thing is, the tv isnt that loud when you're down there, it's almost like the floor amplifies it.

i had thought about 'glass roll or bat insulation, didnt know how much sound deadening i'd get from it.


:beer:
 

Crazy Car Guy

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Messages
595
Location
morehead ky
stuff some craft faced R-19 or better in there and it will reduce it a lot. i have a interior wall insulated for noise control and it works wonders. just make sure you cover all gaps spray foam around pipes wires ect too. the warm floor you get will just be a added bonus.
 

mmhouse

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 31, 2008
Messages
754
Location
Desert Southwest
the basement is unfinished right now, just open joists,

no plans in the near future of finishing it off.

funny thing is, the tv isnt that loud when you're down there, it's almost like the floor amplifies it.

i had thought about 'glass roll or bat insulation, didnt know how much sound deadening i'd get from it.


:beer:

Actually the floor will amplify the sound, or at least transfer it quite well. It acts as a diaphragm, the whole thing (joists and attached subfloor) vibrating with the sound. When attaching drywall to walls and ceilings a special metal 'resilient channel' is sometimes used to help attenuate this sound transfer. See here:

http://www.soundproofing.org/infopages/channel.htm

Fiberglass may help, at least some. You could use kraft backed and staple it up. To the extent that the sound is vibrating the joists it probably won't help much. For sound actually migrating through the subfloor, it should do some good.
 
OP
C

crewchief888

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
13,739
Location
NW indiana
it's not shaking or vibrating the floors,
i'd be cutting speaker wires if it was :lol_hitti

guess it's just being amplified by the floor a little.

the floor upstairs stays surprising warm considering it's all wood.
i have forced hot water heat everywhere in the house, the downstairs pipes to the radiators are all in the floor, so the floor warms up, basement warms up and heat rises.

i didnt want to install a bunch of 'glass insulation and not have it dampen any of the noise, and be looking for another solution.
i hate having to do anything twice


:beer:
 

Torque1st

MEMBER EMERITUS
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Messages
5,668
Location
KC Metro, Kansas
it's not shaking or vibrating the floors,...
Actually it IS vibrating the floor, just not at the frequencies you would feel.

Acoustics can do strange things. I have a pair of floor speakers in my office that I swear are louder down the hall than in my office.

I used a suspended ceiling in my basement and it did a fantastic job even without adding fiberglass on top of it.
 

Addrock

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 1, 2010
Messages
393
Location
South Wisconsin
The best bang for your buck is fiberglass insulation with a vibrational break from ceiling joist. This can be done with preformed steel Z shaped steel or furring strips perpendicular and attached to the joists and another course of furring strips perpendicular to those (parallel to the joist but attached to the first furring strip coarse between the joists). Attach sheet rock to that. Drop ceiling is a good choice for a basement because of the inherent insulation and access to mechanicals, but it is also easy to isolate vibration from the floor above.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Chris Adams

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
Messages
2,117
Actually it IS vibrating the floor, just not at the frequencies you would feel.

Acoustics can do strange things. I have a pair of floor speakers in my office that I swear are louder down the hall than in my office.

I used a suspended ceiling in my basement and it did a fantastic job even without adding fiberglass on top of it.


I have used Cork in a similar situation but Torque1st idea of suspended ceiling, especially using the acoustic ceiling would probably be the best bet.

Or find out why it is making the sound.
You may find that changing to larger diameter speakers to eliminate the high notes, or smaller to soften the low notes might just fix it.

I would walk around the living room with the TV running, and see if you are hearing the high's or the lows.


I fixed a not too dissimilar problem at my SIL's place by putting external speakers on her roommate's TV, with small bookshelf speakers near her head while she was listening.
She would have the TV up till the sound was audible in the whole house, as she is a little deaf.

The small speakers much closer to her ears let her enjoy the sound while other people in the house can hear themselves think.

She says she can hear it better, and we couldn't even hear it in the next room.
Did cost a little, but not much. I used PC speakers and the earphone jack, which disabled the internal speakers.
 

pcmeiners

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
7,831
Location
In the only town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.
As to cellulose, had an apartment with a kiddy party center downstairs, before adding floor underlayment to the present floor I packed (not loose) the floor's 2x10s space with blown insulation via 4" holes reducing the noise close to 50%; even with that I could still hear the blasting stereo, but a big improvement.
 

mobetta

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
370
Location
twin cities, mn
double 5/8 sheetrock w/ green glue in between. if you have some $$ add fiberglass or other insulation first. if you have $$$$ consider an uncoupled design using isolation clips and hat channel. resilient channel is hard to install perfectly, clips and hat channel is almost fool proof.

if you have light cans, it adds to the install.

I have used this store and products with good results, a phone call will help decide a remedy-
Click Here
 

jam0o0

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Messages
244
Location
Katy, TX
how much fabric furniture is in the basement? if it's all concrete floors and wood furniture then you need some sound absorption. fabric, open cell foam, drop cieling tiles will all help. if the room has a lot of sound absorbing stuff in it already then you'll get the best results (imo) from a sound blocking layer between the basement and upstairs. of course doing both will get you better results.

the lower the sound you want to stop the thicker the insulation needs to be to be most effective.
 

Grinder Bill

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 11, 2011
Messages
217
A lot of good replies... If you do go with fiberglass stay away from the pink stuff of any R value; it has no significant acoustical properties. In the refinery and powerhouse we use boiler insulation to kill sound, namely Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass boards.
 

v7guy

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
557
Location
Hudson valley, NY
My brother recommended that I put foam between sheetrock and the joists/studs, it acts as a barrier between sheet rock and the framing. It works surprisingly well.

If you don't want to finish off the ceiling I think previous suggestions are a good place to look
 

Detroit Auto

Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
5
Location
Michigan
indexphp.jpg

As I play Drums,it can get really loud for other people in the house. So what I did was; I went to Dennies restaurant and ask the manager if they could save me a big stack of Egg Cartons (paper type) and he did. So I ended up putting them up in the floor joists.As they went up I stuffed the cavity with rags (cut up clothing) I got from the Salvation army. Total cost was next to nothing. I later finished everything off with the drop ceiling.
 

7echo

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 16, 2008
Messages
432
Location
coastal Georgia
What mobetta said, and look into National Gypsum Soundbreak. Soundbreak is a factory made board that uses a similar sort of material as Green Glue. We used some on a project and it was really amazing how much it knocked out the sound. The National Gypsum site(as well as other drywall mfgs.) will have a tech paper on details for best sound deadening.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
Top Bottom