What is the best inexpensive way to soundproof a room?

Question

The room has cement walls, floor and celling with one door and two small basement size windows. What would the best way to soundproof the room while creating good acoustics?

Answer 1

well, I had a band once, & we hung carpet on the walls and stapled it to the cieling. it did not muffle the bass, though...

Answer 2

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The advice to enlarge the intake is good. The larger it is, the slower the air flow, so less noise. Soundproofing is a blend of absorption, and density. Covering the interior of the furnace room with another layer of drywall, then gluing acoustical ceiling tile on the walls would make a big difference. Keep in mind that a small hole anywhere between the inside and outside of the room will negate a lot of effort in soundproofing. Put weatherstrip on the door, with a good sweep at the bottom. Glue the ceiling tile on the inside of the door, too. If your furnace is a "direct vent" model, that has a separate pipe to supply the combustion air...great...but if it doesn't, you can't seal up the room or the furnace won't work. If that is the case, consider adding a duct that will run outside to supply the air it needs. You can use PVC pipe to do this, and the HVAC code will determine the amount of area needed based on BTU output of the furnace. If it already has a separate intake for the combustion air, that is where a lot of noise comes from, so wrapping that with insulation will help, too.

Answer 3

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What is the best inexpensive way to soundproof a room?
The room has cement walls, floor and celling with one door and two small basement size windows. What would the best way to soundproof the room while creating good acoustics?

Answer 4

Any way you go at it won't be cheap. The cost of materials today makes cheap almost impossible. If you live in a large area and have access to a liquidation warehouse you could try getting your hands on some R24 or higher insulation and try attaching it at the floor and ceiling. You can cover it over with canvas or anything cheap to cover the ugly; don't know that it will help with acoustics. If you want good acoustics then you have to go with studs, soundproof wall board, and waffle acoustic materials and that my friend is not cheap.

Answer 5

If you are doing acoustics for purposes of recording, the age old remedy is egg cartons. (Not the plastic ones.) It's a good idea as a general rule to have one wall that absorbs sound opposite a reflective wall. But that's very general.

If it's not for a studio application, the best way is to put a double layer of wallboard. One going floor to ceiling and one going left to right. This will ensure that the seams will be covered. Not cheap, but no the most expensive way to do it either.

Answer 6

It kind of depends what you mean. Are you trying to keep sound IN or OUT?

If you want to jam your music or blast the TV, and not bother the neighbors, you should use headphones, get carpet with a good pad, use fabric wherever possible to absorb sound, including slipcovers, area rugs, throw pillows, linens on open shelving instead of behind cupboard doors...unless they are on a shared wall between your place and the neighbors'. Also, keep your electronics and speakers on yours-only walls, not shared walls, or in rooms with shared walls, also helps if they aren't pointed BACK toward the shared wall, maybe they are on the adjacent wall, rather than the opposite wall for this reason. This would apply to ONE room, such as siblings that are nextdoor neighbors in the same house, or apartments where strangers share walls. It also doesn't hurt to have the kind of relationship with your neighbors and/or housemates, that you can just straight-up ask them if or when your noise bothers them...and then make adjustments to your lifestyle and schedule with regard to noise.

If you are trying to keep noise OUT, such as traffic, kids playing outside, mowers, construction, etc...the big answer is to pay close attn to windows and doors and their seals. You might also put fabrics outside, such as a porch swing with a canvas seat cover underneath the living room picture window...so that these items catch some energy of the noise and muffle it. It may only help with things like reverb and vibration, but sometimes that is enough to relieve part of the problem. You can also get a white noise machine including a fan, or nature sounds CD or machine, etc to mask noise so you aren't affected by it.

Both kinds of noise pollution can be helped by insulating your home's walls as well as possible.

Answer 7

As stated earlier, carpet is a good sound proofer. You can actually go to a carpet store and see what they've removed from existing homes and use it. It's free! And some of it is in pretty good condition. Another cheap alternative is cork. Cork can be glued up in rolls and is an excellent sound proofing agent and it's recyclable. wecork.com is one i've used. Hope this helps

Answer 8

Best method would be to use some material specifically for sound proofing. Like these products, for example - http://www.soundproofing.org/

There are quite a few sources that carry this type of product, just do a search on the type of material you'd like, and you'll find a number of them.

Have Fun

Answer 9

Go to a restaurant that serves a lot of breakfast and ask them if you can have all of their used egg separators in the box it came in and there is usually about 5 in a case. When you have enough of them, glue them on your wall. They make great sound proofing material, really cheap. I read about this about 40 years ago.

Answer 10

Use thermo pole sheets, the thicker the sheets the better. I don't think its going to effect any acoustics in the room.

Answer 11

Egg crates, ya know the ones that eggs actually come in.
But good luck trying to find that many!!