How to Soundproof Your Home

Soundproofing is something that rarely crosses peoples mind, but as soon as you have a noise problem in your home, it quickly becomes the only thing you think about day & night.

So how can you resolve your soundproofing issues within your home?

The first step in resolving your noisy home issue is to identify the source or location the noise is coming from. It may seem obvious but in an age where we are living closer to our neighbours than ever before, the noise problems could be coming from multiple locations, especially when living in an apartment.

So, lets identify the type of noise problems and the location of the noise problems, we can then rectify the issue with the appropriate soundproofing products and sound insulation products.

1) Is the noise travelling through the floors or walls is the first step. If the noise is predominant in a certain area your eyes will automatically be drawn to the noise source. Try turning off all the appliances in your home to eliminate excess back gound noise and see if you can locate the source of the additional unwanted noise.

Note: you may find that the noise is predominantly through your windows. In a structure of the building, windows are normally an acoustic weak point. If this is the problem, road noise or exterior noise problems could be the issue. get in touch with one of our technical team to discuss how this can be rectified.

2) So, now we have identified where the noise issues are coming from, lets identify the type of noise problems we are dealing with. Sound insulation is broken down into a few different categories,

• AIRBORNE NOISE the transfer of noise from talking, music or any other noise source in this category.
• IMPACT NOISE is best described as footfall or footsteps, this is mainly found in apartment blocks as you have neighbours above you.
• STRUCTURE BORNE NOISE can be either airborne or impact but it is transported throughout your properties structural elements, such as steels or concrete floors. the best way to identify this is the added element of vibration through these elements, can you feel the vibrations with the noise problems? this could be structure borne noise.

SOUNDPROOFING YOUR HOME

Hopefully, we have now identified where and what type of soundproofing issue you have in your home, so let’s work out how we can fix it with different sound proofing & sound insulation products.

The best way to resolve soundproofing problems is to approach the below aspects

Mass & density in your partition (wall or floor)

Adding mass to your partition stops the passage of sound through the wall and floor, this simple concept of adding additional mass to your partition can make a huge difference to sound insulation. if you imagine shouting on one side of a curtain compared to one side of a concrete wall, the same applies to every wall, floor or ceiling when it comes to soundproofing

Separation in your partition (wall or floor)

Separation in your partition can provide a big difference in the sound insulation properties, the main principle is to stop the sound transferring from one product within the floor/wall to the other i.e from the timber joists to the plasterboard, in putting separation in your partition it prevents the noise energy from transferring from one side of the partition to the other and improves the soundproofing properties dramatically.

Selecting the best soundproofing & sound insulation products can be a difficult process, if you need assistance in this, please do not hesitate to contact one of our technical team, we are here to help.