Your home might be rummaging throughout the day by either your neighbor’s dog or the kids playing outside.
It might be your brother blasting music in his room or your sister cycling through the TV channels. A busy road or a noisy street, one way or the other, all the humming and buzzing has led you to this question.
Consequently, if you are here trying to find an answer to that question.
Then you must be thinking about it for any number of reasons and just like any other problem, the solution to this question depends on a number of factors which should be co-dependently analyzed.
Like whether is it even possible to have your room completely soundproof? Or is it economically viable to soundproof a room in your home?
Do you really need to soundproof your room?
The first thing you need to do is to establish whether you actually need to soundproof your room or not.
You can do that by ascertaining whether you actually need to do that or is it possible for you to remove the disturbance at source?
For example, if you think that anyone walking on the first floor of your home is causing undesirable noise, then perhaps all you need is a carpet that would absorb that noise at the source.
If outside noise is disturbing you, perhaps try adding a door sweep or a heavy mat under the door to create a seal around your noise entry point.
It is almost always cheaper and more convenient to cut the disturbance at the source rather than having a complete room soundproofed.
How does soundproofing your room work?
The idea is really simple, lighter surfaces vibrate more frequently and therefore more noise is able to pass through them.
So if you want less noise to pass through a surface all one needs to do is basically add mass to the surface to make it heavier.
Soundproofing material does exactly that!
1. Some cheap fixes!
First off, let’s get one thing cleared placing pillows around the room or getting a carpet of any such measure is not going to soundproof your room.
These techniques will act as sound absorbers which means that they will absorb any sound generated inside the room and suppress it while soundproofing is done to stop sounds from coming into the room from the outside.
Here are some handy fixes you can utilize to reduce any incoming noise!
2. Need some sleep? How about a pair of earbuds!
If the only reason you are contemplating soundproofing your room is to get a good night’s sleep then perhaps a simple solution like earbuds would do the job!
They are cheap and reliable. I know they don’t drown out all the noise, but hey, you’ll never know until you try, right?!
3. Sealing the room doors and windows
Most of the noise entering in a closed room is often sliding in through the gaps around the door.
One of the simplest solutions to reduce this noise to a minimum is sealing up your room doors through some kind of insulator like weatherstrips.
Windows can be dealt with some window seal kits which essentially add another layer of glass in addition to the original one and helps to keep the noise out by removing any noise transmission areas in the window.
These, of course, may not completely eliminate the noise as room doors are mostly hollow and a lot of noise is passed through them.
However, it actually does work quite well in keeping a major portion of the noise out.
Pros and cons of soundproofing your room
If despite all the other actions, you still want to consider soundproofing your room then it would be best to see some pros and cons associated with soundproofing your room.
Let’s dive in and take various factors into account for solving your noise problem!
1. Get some peace and quiet
Well, first things first, soundproofing a single room in your home will give you access to a personal sanctuary where you can just lay back and relax, away from all the earthly noises.
This will significantly improve your quality of life and give you that mental peace that you’ve been craving for quite some time now.
2. Have a personal space
Moreover, if you are a parent or someone who more often needs to have serious conversations then you can just slip into your room for a moment of quiet and attend to that phone call you want.
Or maybe you just need to discuss something without the children eavesdropping on you.
3. It might be too quiet
Ironically, one of the pros of having a completely soundproof room is also one of its cons. You can’t hear anything from the outside.
Perhaps an ambulance or some other emergency service, or maybe something is broken, or any such matter.
Obviously, you can always have some solutions that take care of these phenomena for you but hey! We are just here to give you all the information right now.
4. Soundproofing costs
Generally, in order to soundproof a room, you’d need to use insulation material such that your room is isolated from any external noise.
The costs associated with soundproofing vary significantly depending on the size of the room, the purpose of the room, and the materials used.
The room may be encapsulated by foam panels which are commonly used for soundproofing home theaters that may cost anything between $1.50 to $4.50 per square feet.
While if you decide to go with a coating of soundproof paint which can be used on any surface instead of regular paint but is only effective up to certain mid-level frequencies can cost you around $2.25 to $3.50.
Soundproofing a window with the laminated acoustic glass can cost around a thousand bucks per window.
So you see it really depends on how much you want to get rid of that noise and how much are you willing to invest in doing so.
Conclusion
Generally speaking, soundproofing a room is a job that would most probably require a general contractor or a handyman to have it done for you.
However, if you have the right skills, tools, and permissions along with the required time then you could definitely get around to soundproofing your own room.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to your core problems, what the source of your disturbance is, or what your intentions are regarding the use of the soundproof room.
You’ll have to weigh in the costs and benefits as per your needs and make a decision.
We’ll be glad if we played some part in helping you make an informed decision! 🙂
This article is written by Stephen Zhang from NextStrings and is an avid listener of acoustic tunes as well as writes reviews on acoustic guitars on his blog.
