How to Soundproof a Guest Room

DIY Soundproofing Applications

To understand why soundproofing is necessary in providing an acoustic solution, you first have to have an understanding of how sound behave within an internal and external environment. Sound waves travel through a medium such as air, liquid or solid objects.

Some medium offers little or no resistant such as air and the sound wave travel with minute reduction the further away it travels from the source. If the sound waves come into contact with a solid object, some of the sound waves will pass through the object (if it is not dense enough) with some reduction and some will reflect back off the object. If the sound waves on the other hand come into contact with a solid object with enough density or density couple with engineer air pockets, the sound waves will dissipate to a tolerant level or prevented from travelling through the object.

Other noise pollution sources are produce from vibrations, vibration occurs when sound waves travels back and forth between two or more objects. Some common vibration sources are machinery, pumps (shower pumps, central heating pumps) and sound waves bouncing off walls in an enclose space.

I must point out that to achieve total reduction of sound can be very expensive and will only be recommended for specialist solution such as recording studio or where noise sensitivity is a particular issue. In majority of cases a soundproofing solution will only require you to meet the WHO (World Health Organization) Standard which has a range of 30 - 55 dB (for most applications).

Most of us like to have friends and family over for meals and occasionally to stop over. We would all like our guests to enjoy their stay at our house and to have a restful sleep. But this is not always the case, because of noise problems that existed that can cause serious sleep disturbance.

One of the major causes of noise problem is noisy neighbours or worse nuisance neighbours. They some times talk or shout so loud you can hear their entire conversation and arguments. The television is turned way up and very late into the night. Music playing at all times and very loud, sometime the choice of music is really poor. They have a dog that never seems to stop barking. The baby seems to cry all the time day and night and kids that seem to run everywhere. Noise nuisance from heavy footsteps on the floors above and on the stairs at all times.

We all need to use the bathroom at late night, but even the switching on of the light, reverberates through the house. When you flush the toilet it wake everyone up, even the noise from the running tap annoy the hell out of you. The boiler that seems to keep humming and the pump make so much noise you could be fooled that you are in a horror movie.

Not only do you have to put up with all the other problems but when it rains you have to wonder if the roof is going to cave in? Anyone who lives through any noise problem for any period of time knows the toll it takes on your well being.

Once a noise problem becomes acute, we have no choice but to get a sound proofing solution or acoustic reduction. The best way to go about it is to discover where in the house the noise problem is leaking into the affected room. The noise problem could be heavy footsteps on the floor above, in which case you would need a ceiling sound proofing solution. When noise is caused by heavy footsteps on the floor above, you would need to apply a floor sound proofing solution. If the noise problem is via a partition wall, you would require a wall sound proofing solution.

To go about soundproofing your ceiling will require you to take one of two approaches or a combination of both. First if you have access to the room above; this will enable you to apply a solution to the floor above, the floor cavity and the ceiling. For this solution we would recommend our NSSF7 Underlay, Dense Fibre Matting, SoundBreaker Bar and NSSC1+ Ceiling Board.

If you do not have access to the floor above; you can apply the solution directly to your ceiling. Depending on the height of your ceiling and budget, you can use any of our three Ceiling Systems Options in this application.

Soundproofing your walls is a lot easier because you do not need access to your next door neighbours property. Again base on your budget and total room space you can use anyone of our Wall System Options or our Direct to Wall System to meet Building Regulation Part E Standard. Our Direct to Wall System is a stand alone product and is use in application where building regulation requirement has to be met.

We have a wide range of floor soundproofing solutions to meet any application. We have products that are for specific applications such as concrete floors, timber floors, metal floors and under screed. We have underlay products such as NSSF7 Plus Underlay, Noise Stop Isolation Mat excellent in impact noise reduction; NoiseDeck 36, NoiseStop Isolation Tape and Dense Fibre Matting excellent for timber floor, use to meet Building Regulation 2003; Monarfloor Impact 18 excellent for reduce sound transmission through concrete floors.

We also offer custom build solutions to meet specific applications. We can help with ceiling soundproofing, floor soundproofing and wall soundproofing. If you need any advice or help, one of our consultants will be happy to help you. Call: 08451 306 269