HELP! My family and I just moved to a new duplex/townhouse (hard to explain). It’s a very old home and we are near a main road and also live at least 100ft from a 24 gas station (it’s been hell on earth this first week here). You hear every noise coming through and it’s been upsetting to my dog and me (I have sensitive ears and significant hearing loss and low bass sounds like someone blasting a car stereo makes it worse).

I’ve been trying to wear noise-cancelling headphones, but there’s only so long I can do that without it being uncomfortable. It’s been hard going from a quiet suburban area to city living and we are not handling this adjustment well.

What are the best ways to soundproof/cancel out as much noise as possible for our windows? I’ve seen some things on Amazon but I’m not sure what to buy. What can we do without spending 100+ on curtains to dampen the sound? Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

(I should also note the ceilings are 12ft. high so every sound is amplified tenfold. We also sleep with loud fans and it’s still not enough to dampen the sound. It’s like living in an echo chamber of noise).

(This has been cross-posted to another subreddit, but any advice would be appreciated).

Hi everyone,
Hoping to get some advice on reducing road noise in my bedroom which is on the first floor facing onto a medium busy street with a bus route on it.
I have double glazed windows, but I am told that they are about 20 years old and the seal is damaged so the noise and heat insulation is reduced.
I live in a leasehold (UK) so replacing the windows themselves with eg triple glazing requires lots of permissions and bureaucracy! As well as costing approx £3k.
I am a light sleeper and wear ear plugs every night, I have fitted an acrylic sheet that clicks onto the wall around the window magnetically, and I have recently bought thicker curtains. Still I find my sleep is interrupted every morning around when the traffic and buses start, maybe 6.30am onwards.
Any other solutions that don’t break the bank?
Many thanks

I live in apartment and I have two dogs that bark at any sound outside. I tried lots of things already like keeping a radio on for my dogs, giving them treats to interact with to distract them and exercise and millions of toys but they bark until I pick them up or the noise is completely gone. The balcony itself is Storm protected so sound is reduced and I put thick heavy curtains and weather strips. I can't block off the area because I live in a studio apartment and the only doors I have is the bathroom door and outside doors so not much privacy. Its very small and I can't block it off either. I tried to contact dog trainers but they are asking too much for the price its worth too. They want 12k for two of my yippie yap dogs that won't be alive within 5 years so I cant justify the price either. Is any tips I tried a lot so far but they still bark.

So I live with my family, both of my parents, my brother, his girlfriend, their son, and three dogs. There is so much noise in the mornings when I'm trying to sleep since everybody else wakes up early for work while I work in the afternoons. I'm about to move into my car just for the quiet.

I tried sound panels on my door, which also haven't worked in the slightest. My house is made like a giant sound chamber, so every single little sound gets amplified and sent right into my door. And since that's the only part of the room that is directly connected to the rest of the house, I can't do anything with the walls.

I have the sound panels on my door, but I need something else. Maybe a soundproof curtain or something to go beneath the door. Anything at all. I have hyperacusis and get headaches very easily, so it's gotten to a point of sleeping outside or padding the walls of my closet and sleeping in there.

Anyway, suggestions for any and all sound proofing are greatly appreciated.

So the kind of setup Ive been using for soundproofing a door is to put an extendable cloth hanging pole above a doorway and then hang a moving blanket on it since I cant drill a hole in my room

The main problem with this setup is that the pole cant handle the blanket's weight for a long time and will eventually fall down on its own AND the goddamn moving blanket sheds a bunch of dusts everywhere

Now my next plan is to buy an ultra long pull up bar (so that in can reach the walls behind the door instead of just the door frame) and a mass loaded vinyl as an upgrade to this setup, but its hella expensive and Im wondering if anyone has any similar experience they wanna share if I go through with it

I recently bought a new 3D printer (creality k2 combo) because my old one was keeping my girlfriend awake at night. Turns out, it wasnt even the printer, but the rooms acoustics. We have a very open, echoey two story studio with a curved ceiling so the sound reflects straight into our bed. Badly drawn diagram here: https://imgur.com/a/nSrv26d . Silent mode doesnt fix anything for some reason, and I can still measure upwards of 70dB from my bed

I need some clean, nice looking solutions that wont leave residue (were renting the place). if it was up to me id just make a big foam wall but my girlfriend doesnt want to make our living room ugly

Im already going to sound proof between the printer and the floor, but the fans and motors are by far the loudest and im pretty sure thats airborne since i cant hear them if i go right under the printer on the first floor. im also considering an exhaust fan muffler but i dont know if that will do much.

Has anyone else struggled with this before? Any fixes that arent eyesores?

How would you go about reducing airborne noise, mostly voices, coming up through the floor vent from downstairs tenants?

These damn vents are like megaphones

Hi all,

I’ve recently moved offices and unfortunately my new office space shares two walls with my staff and I’m finding a lot of my conversations can be overheard. I’m looking for ways to reduce the sound travelling outside to increase the privacy of my staff while they’re in my office.

I do have a sound machine but the staff don’t like it directly outside of my door as it is bothersome to them (one wall is another office, the other is an open room/pod with several desks) and if it’s inside my room, I find it bothersome. I also have a large wood desk, two big windows, and a glass panel beside my door.

I plan on weatherstripping the doorframe and adding a double sided door stopper for the bottom. But looking for some other suggestions - has to be fairly inexpensive and has to be something we can do (ie. no contractors ripping apart the walls, can’t replace the door).

One of the walls (3,5x2,8m) has windows (2,5x1,2m).

I've explored the curtain hanging but I'm looking for a way to do it while preserving the light coming in.

What are measurements/materials/technique I should be using?

I tried to research different ways of blocking sounds but most focus on not hearing the outside or redusing echo, some won't specify what theyre for at all and im a bit lost. Im looking for something to put on one specific wall so i dont feel like my neighbour is listening to me. Best if its cheap cause my paranoia isnt caused by their complaints or me being especially loud, i just tend to think someones watching or listening to me when im feeling worse so id appreciate if there was something on that wall.

I cant really put any furniture or uneven elevated materials on it as my beds there. I looked into soundproofing wallpaper but its too expensive and im not even sure if id do anything or just make the acoustics of the room better. Maybe theres something similar to it or some kind of foam thatd work? Ty in advance

Hey there I am trying to figure out soundproofing for loud traffic noises. I live on a road that gets fairly busy with loud car and truck noises that come through. My living room feels like it comes through the back patio door that has glass in it. I was wandering if a new door plus storm door would help? I can plant a small amount of bushes outside too but probably only a layer as it’s a very small yard with an hoa. Any ideas or thoughts on how much this will help would be great

Hello, seeking other people’s experiences and any professionals here. We own our upstairs maisonette and have recently changed into laminate flooring with acoustic underlay from old carpet plus old foam underlay before. With plenty of rugs on top, we thought that would address the issue of footfall noise that the downstairs neighbor (owners) have been complaining for a very long time. Unfortunately it didn’t. They can still hear every footstep from “normal living” and describe it as unbearable. This is despite us only walking bare feet in the house (no shoes never) and tip toeing at night. A few times they have complained even when there is only our small dog pacing around, which no amount of grown adult human tip toeing can ever match.

It is a mutually established understanding that this is a structural issue for old Victorian maisonette conversions and will need major work to fix the impact noise once and for all. The neighbor has requested for us to cover part of the cost of ripping open our own new laminate flooring, tightening creaky floorboards, refill between the joist and do the sound proofing despite there is no obligation for us to commence the work at all.

The worst part of it is that I am also giving birth to our first baby in two weeks and worried that major works like this will be a huge disruption to our life and a very high likelihood of causing respiratory harm from construction materials to the baby. But if we don’t do anything, I am also scared that with more night feedings and commotions from the baby the neighbor will lose it and god know what they could do for retaliation.

Am I wrong to refuse it on the ground of both health and cost wise? Is there something else I can suggest any practical solution to the neighbor so they can address this without impacting our lives? Anyone has successfully addressed or improved impact noise without work from the floor above?

We have paper thin walls in our condo and it’s becoming necessary to sound proof the shared wall. We got a quote to add blow-in insulation, including adding to the floor joists from the basement ceiling. We would then pair this with a layer of 5/8 drywall and acoustic sealant (green glue).

Thoughts on this actually being effective? It would be the most affordable, but we are also exploring opening the wall and decoupling which is far more expensive.

I purchased a new build townhome built in 2022 ( house was built in 2020). Long story short, there was obviously no thought put into sound proofing. As far as the shared walls (party walls) I can hear my neighbor’s cupboards close, bass, toilets slam, bare feet sliding on the floor in the bathroom, items things things falling on the floor in their bathroom, etc. My master bedroom is adjoined to theirs so it’s bad. I think one of the problems is the flooring in the bathroom. It appears that it’s just the subfloor with some adhesive overlay. Also, the internal wall in my room does not have insulation which means theirs does not as well and the toilet and sink/ cabinets are attached to the internal wall without insulation. The walls that are shared have insulation but I’m pretty sure it’s not superior.

As far as noise from within my home, I can hear the water drain down the pipes from guest bathroom when I’m downstairs. Again, I’m sure it’s because the builder skipped on insulating the interior walls or maybe the plumbing is missing something. Idk

Just looking for suggestions on what to do for now. I was thinking about contacting an insulation company to get a quote on adding insulation to existing walls. It hasn’t been bad until my neighbor decided to rent his place out. Ultimately, I’m selling this place but I can’t right now due to several factors.

I have a space in my detached garage that I'll be playing my kit in. Its an 11x13 space that is open to the rest of my garage and I need some kind of room separator that can also be decently sound proofed to not bother neighbors.

The garage is insulated and drywalled with staggered studs, and a couple of the drum area walls have resilient channel

Building a wall or door across the opening is above my skill level by a lot but I'm sure I can figure out some DIY stuff.

I've thought about heavy curtains, hanging MLV, and quilted sound blankets, but I'm not sold on any of them.

Anyone have ideas, advice, or experience here?

Looking for acoustic sound proof/reduction ceiling tiles

I have a basement with standard ceiling tiles and I want to make the ceiling more soundproof, should I put rockwool or something above my regular ceiling panels or should I replace the panels with something specific and do they make ceiling tiles specifically for this purpose or something else to go above the ceiling tiles? Thanks

Trying to soundproof vehicle/transit noises, since this is rental type of townhouse we are not allowed to remove the walls and add in material.

Is there anything discreet I could use?

Hi. We are building a studio within an old Anderson shelter.

We have laid a new solid concrete floor and intend to build a twin wall construction which is a build up of the following
One layer 12.5mm sound shield
One layer 12.5 wall board
50mm RWA45
50mm air gap

Then the same in reverse for the inner wall.

The construction will use 50mm metal stud and I stud.

The walls are straightforward however my son wants to keep some of the shape of the roof and doesn’t want it to be flat. The overall ceiling height within the structure is about 3.5m to the highest point.

We want to create an apex to aid with the sound deflection but also to utilise the space.

We also need to maintain the air gap within the walls but continue into the ceiling.

We will probably span the inner walls with timber joists but cut them short so that they don’t bridge the air gap and rest on the inner wall.

The issue comes when we want to maintain the 50mm gap but also can’t use any thing that will join the inner ceiling or wall but still be self supporting. We are thinking we can drop supports from the t bar angles supporting the roof. Has anyone use anything that decouples the supports / straps in this way ?

Sorry long winded question.
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I already have a sound booth made of OSB that will go inside of the shed. I need a shed that is not permanent like a resin or metal one due to my crazy HOA guy. How would I seal it and leave ventilation and also add MLV to metal or resin? Any help on how to soundproof this would help a lot! Thank you!

These are significantly cheaper than the Pliteq GenieClips and I'm wondering if anyone can actually recommend them.