sound proofing bedroom

HOTLUVRS

EPDM absorb very well. If you are looking for something to glue to concrete, Google "Sound Absorbing Panels"

Duct Tape over her mouth....

I question if EPDM is very acoustically desirable. Concrete walls tend to be heavy enough to usually block sound effectively, you might want some soft material on the inside to control the echo in the room. The issue with soundproofing a basement room is usually the interior walls and ceiling treatment. You want the ceiling to be heavy/solid, without gaps, and with some decoupling from the floor above.

It's hard to really block sound in a typical house, might be easier to turn up the music. :)

CandB,

Do you think that EPDM glued to a concrete wall would be effective. We have a basement space that I’d love to soundproof

The first part of the puzzle is to understand acoustics. Sound travels best through parts of the wall that are solidly connected. Sheetrock to stud to sheetrock. The best way to try and prevent the sound transfer is to create an air gap. To illustrate this, turn on the TV in your bedroom, set the volume to a moderate level, and shut the door. Take a drinking glass and put the bottom against your ear, and the open end against the wall, right next to the door trim. There should be a wall stud in this spot. Next, move the glass away from the door 8-10 inches and listen again. What you hear should be more muffled, because you are at an air gap. To over emphasize the effect of an air gap, simply pull the glass away from the wall and you will hear nothing.

Now, since you can't just hang sheetrock in mid air, you have to use what is called Resilient Channel, or Z-Channel. It is a Z shaped channel that goes between the stud and the sheetrock, to give the semblance of an air gap. On top of that you use sound absorbing panels instead of regular sheetrock. Or you use sheetrock and other sound absorbing devices in the rest of the room. The drawback to all of this is that if you hang anything much heavier than a pair of socks on the wall, you might have problems.

Earlier in this thread was a suggestion to use something that will reflect the sound back, which is not the best because it forms an echo chamber. To illustrate this, if you have ever walked into a bedroom that is completely bare, meaning no carpet, bed, drapes, etc., every word you say echoes and people can hear your normal discussion from the other side of the house. Now add the carpeting, bed, drapes- all sound absorbing items, and the echo and sound transmission is drastically reduced.

So you are now saying to yourself "What makes this knucklehead such an expert?" Well, when I was building houses, we built a bunch of high-end golf coarse homes, and home theater rooms were THE thing to have. Naturally, people wanted these rooms to be as sound tight as possible. Stuck somewhere in the gray matter is what I learned from doing it, and every now and then it finds it's way out.

let them listen , it would be hot . or maybe they will want to join in

There's no easy, truly effective solution to preventing sound transmission from one room to another.

You can put up acoustic foam, or hang heavy blankets (moving blankets are cheap and work well) and cover a good percentage of the surfaces. This will absorb reflecting sound and make the room sound better (for listening to music, recording etc), it will have some, but limited effect, in preventing sound transmission through the walls. Maybe that would be enough... maybe not.

Part of the problem is it requires a very significant reduction in sound transmission to be effective in our perception. A 50% reduction will only make a very small impact in perceived loudness.

To keep sound inside the room, you essentially need to overhaul the structure to make the whole space water-tight, seal any cracks or openings (around doors, HVAC system etc), and make the walls (floor & ceiling) heavy & solid to keep the sound vibrations on the interior wall from being coupled to the other side. This usually means the interior sheetrock and the other rooms sheetrock should not be nailed to the same framing support. Adding mass also helps a lot, so use thicker heavier sheetrock, or two pieces. Ceilings, floors, and doors of course need similar treatment.

I did a bottom up remodel of a house and put significant insulation in interior as well as exterior walls. Even with that, I still had to put towels in front of the bedroom door if I didn't want sex noises to travel.

go to a place like [ guitar center ] they sell sound proofing for recording studios , you can make your room sound like anything you want , or dont want .

“ Had anyone tried those fabric panels you place on the wall?”

A lot of those panels are advertised as soundproofing, yet true soundproofing is expensive and absorbs sound waves, unlike a lot of those panels that just reflect the sound within the room. Wood behind any panels also collect and transmits through the layers, defeating the purpose.

If you want cheap, hang some blankets on the walls.

~Allen

I put soundproofing overlay (4x8 sheets, light fibrous material, maybe 1/2" thick and slightly textured) on my media room walls and they worked great, also put a thick door sweep on the bottom of the door to block sound. Another method I found out by accident is to do floor-ceiling mirrors on the adjoining wall. Our new house already had them installed in two rooms and they really block the sound and can add to the sex view. Unfortunately, they also seem to partially block the WiFi signal. Back when we had kids, we'd also put on some music to drown out the sex sounds.

I purchased grey eggcrate foam sheets 72x80 from Foam Factory, attached thin wood strip to top edge. Couple installed cup hooks along ceiling trim, to hang foam in several locations. When taken down, they roll up sheets--4 sheets squish into 14" cardboard sonotube they keep in their closet. 4 pieces of foam were $160, wood and hardware about $20.

Duct tape fixes everything...

You could look for a vintage Get Smart cone of silence...

Any rumors that the cone of silence is related to the later cone of shame are lies.

Lies, I say.

Check with music stores.. they may have sound damping panels you can place on the walls.. just say its latest art for your "music"..

Home depot also has some sound dampening panels

Hi,

We have been looking for cheap and easy ways to sound proof our bed room. We have kids, so we like to keep it down.

Had anyone tried those fabric panels you place on the wall?