Hi guys,
I have the most annoying and inconsiderate housemate ever but have no choice but to stick here until my lease ends.
Any suggestions on the most cost effective way/provider to soundproof my adjoining bedroom wall to his? Just one 3metre times 2 metre surface area of wall to cover and I'm in Melbourne.
Thanks guys!
egg cartons are good for sound isolation. its free. everyone uses eggs
Good luck finding enough egg cartons to cover a whole wall!
Lol, time to start stalking the Vic market bin area
And a mixture of both, combined with bubble wrap will make your room/house completely soundproof. Of course if you guys have windows opposite each other, you may well still be able to hear them.
Egg cartons are good. Ugly, though.
Beaten by 31 seconds!
eggs/beaten. lol
That's a great yolk. Cracking in fact.
One of those double-sided door snakes will help too.
Like this
http://www.greenrenters.org/product/double-sided-door-snake
But don't pay their price, seen them much cheaper at Reject Shop, places like that.
Egg cartons are a myth.
They do not work.
Also, massive fire hazard…
Lol…"Oh no! Science! Must neg before people see I'm wrong!"
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f30/soundproofing-eggcartons-m…
Lots of forums suggest Egg cartons don't work.
This suggestion however, does work:
http://lifehacker.com/5860970/soundproof-your-apartment-with…
That, and camp mats (the blue foam mat that you lay your sleeping bag on when you camp) can also be used to deaden the sound, without turning your room into a fire trap.
What actually makes a room sound proof is the dead air space that is created by double walling a room — think of a room-within-a-room construction.
Obviously you can't achieve that without making some major modifications. What you can do however is to seal up the room to make it 'airtight' and prevent the sounds from coming through cracks from the windows and doorframe. That's what the weatherproofing tape is for.
Ear plugs or headphones would be simpler and cheaper perhaps…
Came here to say this. Ear canal earphones, put on some classical music/whatever floats your boat on low and youre sweet.
I used to live next to a block of flats.
one of the people there used to listen to really loud bad music .
I found playing 30 seconds of the Romper Stomper soundtrack at high volume quickly resulted in the neighbour turning his music down.
Have you actually asked this person to keep it down?
IME, a lot of noisy idiots aren't truly inconsiderate, they're just self-absorbed…once you let them know that they're impacting on you, they actually snap to attention for a while…they may require a top-up from time to time, but it's usually only a special kind of jackass that would ignore a polite request! ;)
You're quite right. Lots of people jump straight into finding technical solutions to social issues. A quick 'our walls must be really thin because I can hear your music - would you mind keeping it down' is probably going to be much more effective than implementing some ghetto sound-proofing and a lot cheaper (in true OZ style).
This is true, I know because I was a noisy idiot myself about 15 years ago. One day at the bank I got talking to the bank teller who happened to be my neighbour who lived behind me, over a creek (actually quite a distance from our house!), I always remember to this day what she said once realising where I lived "Oh you must be the guy who plays that loud music all the time?"
She wasn't angry, but it was a wake up call to myself that my music must travel through the valley more than I ever knew. After that I was a lot more sensible. These days I have a family and am much older, just grateful I don't have to deal with any young generation of "noisy idiots" (touches wood) :)
Gosh, I must have been a nightmare, but a blissfully unaware nightmare. To the OP, make sure you have first spoken to him/her about it like the guy above says.
if it's a small area you could rip apart some old speakers and use the sound deadening mats to cover wall, otherwise Jaycar will have just the mat itself, $12.50 for a 1m x 0.7m section http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=AX3694
Egg cartons, sound deadening mats, duck feathers.
Okay maybe not the last one.
My point is, if you're renting as the OP is, how exactly would you affix these things to the wall?
It has to be stuck to it, right?
I think the snake thing seems to be the best solution so far. Apart from reject shop, anywhere else where you can get them? This double sided thing looks cool but I was planning on doing it to my front door so the common property area might not appreciate it lol.
Better still - put a snake in your housemates room - available from pet shops everywhere.
Got a few at Chickenfeed, about 4 years ago.
Here's the identical item at eBay for $1.78 (delivered):
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Twin-Door-Draft-Dodger-Guard-…
Spelling is the key: draft/draught
Expanding polyurethane foam pressure pack/s from Bunnings.
Here's the plan:
1) take a day off work when your housemate is not home either.
2) Use an electronic stud finder and mark out on the wall in pencil where exactly all the timber vertical studs and horizontal noggins are.
3) drill a small hole in the wall at the centre of each section you've marked out. Probably 10 - 12 holes, maybe more.
4) insert nozzle of expanding foam pressure pack and squirt contents into wall cavity. Plug the hole after to stop the foam expanding out of the hole.
5) polyfiller the holes in the wall if necessary, sand then paint (use a small sponge and dab the paint to blend into existing paint.)
When at Bunnings getting the foam, grab heaps of colour cards similar to the wall colour (cream, beige ?) so you can match the wall paint - then go back and get a small sample pot - otherwise, dont be afraid to paint the whole wall - it's not a hard job and the landlord wont notice.
Might cost a few bucks - but what's the cost of a good nights sleep.
If you're gonna go to those lengths, just go the extra yard…break into his room & squirt the foam into every single speaker enclosure the guy owns…that should dampen the sound considerably! Rightly or wrongly, the fact is that both approaches technically = malicious damage to property! :p
Capital & emotional improvement.
It can be very hit and miss trying to match paint colour using paint chips. While that tiny scrap of card may look like it matches, when painted on, it can be a whole other story. In short, you're likely to have to paint the whole wall, but it's fairly small, so shouldn' take that long anyway. BUT sample pots are not finishing paint, and you'll more than likely find it's more trouble than it's worth.
Given that you only have a couple of months to go before you can move out, it would be a lot cheaper to duck down to supercheap and buy a 6 pair pack of earplugs (theirs do a better job than some others) for $5. Add a bit of white noise if need be and see how you go.
Just cut a section of paint off the wall with a stanley knufe, and grt bunnings to scan and match. They still only charge $6 for a sample pot. Its what i do whenever i have to patch up the walls in a rental
If you make the hole up as high as possible then any imperfection is less likely to be seen
really bad idea.
You can easily bulge out all the board between the studs. I know a guy that hangs sheets and he had a guy try and DIY the foam insulation in a house like this. Didn't end well.
Absolutely - do not underestimate the expanding power of polyurethane foam. Know first hand of a fridge installation in a boat where they fitted the fridge before the foam they sprayed into its surrounding cavity had finished blerping out to full size. Fridge ended up a bit dented inwards from the pressure. Plasterboard is less resilient, so warrants even more care.
This is easily fixed by making a hole in the roof for any foam to expand up into
Drilling some holes in the top plate? I still wouldn't trust that the plasterbaord will stay flat. Stuff neat the top could stop expanding while the middle still is = blown out sheet. Also doesn't help you with the bottom part of the wall under the noggin.
If you did it in a heap of small goes it would be ok but it would be a nightmare as you near the clean the nozzle out really well each time.
I couldn't find anywhere in the post that mentions the problem was loud music, or that the housemate was a male.
Maybe the housemate is a 'grunter'!! Having a Maria Sharapova type sound coming from the next room sure would be annoying. Especially if you know the housemate isn't a tennis player!!
"to soundproof my adjoining bedroom wall to his"
And his name is phil
And his name is phil
And his name is phil
But what is his name?
Fill
phil mcrack
Hmmn! Missed that, thanks. The grunter scenario could still well exist!
Especially if the girlfriend is a Sharapova.
If you use ear plugs, make sure you wash them each day in warm soapy water or you'll end up with an ear infection. To be effective they have to seal tightly.
It is less hassle to use a good set of shooters earmuffs. I picked up a set of Peltor Ultimate 10s from an Ebay seller several ears ago. Hopefully they are still available locally. They deaden nose by a considerable amount (30 Decibels?), though the muffling is greater with higher pitched noises like birds. Just be aware that earmuffs clamp tightly around your ears, so they may feel uncomfortable after wearing for 30 minutes.
Peltor links: http://www.amazon.com/3M-Peltor-Ultimate-Hearing-Protector/d…
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Peltor-Ultimate-10-Shooting-Heari…
I have seen sawdust filled door snakes for sale at BigW.
I hope this helps. Noise becomes more of a problem as a population density increases because our egregious politicians (left and right) let too many people enter the country. Here in Brisbane blocks of land are becoming really small, houses build almost to the edge of the block. And of course apartments are teeming around train stations and shopping centres.
Pretty sure the baby bonus is a bigger factor than any amount of migrants entering the country.
Pretty sure bogans ignoring contraception is a bigger factor than those two combined! ;)
how about a pair of active noise cancellation headphones
It really depends on the type of sound you are trying to block. You won't be able to block low sounds, like bass or knocking on the wall. For higher pitched sounds, hanging curtains or foam on the wall can help, as mentioned above, but be aware that it can be a fire hazard. If it's from a stereo, the flatmate could perhaps move the speakers to another wall.
Also you should move your bed to the other side of the room. Vibrations travel through the wall, so if you are further from the wall, you won't hear them as well. The headphones idea should be helpful as well.
Finally, forcing the annoying roommate to pay for the full amount of the lease because he can't find where you disappeared to could be the unethical revenge method.
When I had my recording studio set up in a 2 bedroom apartment, I added carpet to the walls and the neighbour (a single lady) said she only heard faint sounds - apart from the time we had a Marshall stack in the toilet to get some tight reverb, but, yea +1 for carpet …
Cheers
Richard
Change the locks when he's at work.
I had a noisy apartment and the best solution we came up with was ruining a fan in the room whether summer or winter, I can't recommend this enough, former girlfriend loves the sound so much she still sleeps with the fan irrelevant of noise levels.
First post for me, but couldn't resist passing on this pearl of a solution
Fans do work well. Not sure on the power consumption though.
It is actually quite hard to get to sleep after sleeping with a fan on for a while.
Use a white noise machine or a radio clock that's not tuned to a station. It does the same job — but less power consumption.
Wouldn't that sound drive you bonkers after a while ?!
Nope, it is intended to do the opposite. In office environments white noise can increase productivity and reduce work stress.. Studies also found that it can be used to alleviate insomniac symptoms.
So if you have trouble sleeping, try this Android app called Relax and Sleep which has a over 35 ambient sounds which can be used to drown out undesirable noise.
We soundproofed a few walls in our self-built house, so I did a bit of research. If your separating wall is studs with plasterboard and nothing in the gaps, you can stop sound coming through the wall itself, but there will still be some leakage by vibration transmission through the frame and up over the tops of the walls. It depends on the type of noise how bad the vibration/up&over problem is - snoring or talking (or moaning?) is much easier to block out than subwoofer doof-doof-doof.
Total overkill idea:
Boral do a really dense plasterboard for stopping sound that would cost ~$70 to cover 3x2m (http://www.gohardware.com.au/buy/13mm-enviro-sound-stop-plas…), and I'm trying to think of something that you could place between the wall plasterboard and the dense plasterboard - foam carpet underlay? I guess that Melbourne's a bit damp to leave something like that permanently up against the wall. Else you could buy a few plasterboard screws and some batten timber, screw the plasterboard into battens run around the edges, then fix the underlay against the plasterboard in between the battens. Raise up to the wall and prop with a few more bits of batten timber made into a braced elbow on each side. Paint side facing outwards with cheap undercoat and disposable roller before erecting. Enjoy new paint smell in relative quiet. Don't enjoy the look from the agent when they inspect the place…
Otherwise, if you can put any fasteners into the wall, hanging heavy quilts from a piece of batten/quad timber and somehow attaching that to nails/hooks/etc in the wall studs could be a goer. Don't try hanging something that heavy from plasterboard alone unless you know the weight and have fasteners which claim to handle that much weight in plasterboard. You could make a hanger that sits on the floor and has side supports if you can't touch the walls, but you'd need to make the timber that you hang the quilts from thicker if it's only supported at the ends, or else it will sag in the middle. Assuming you care. :-)
Egg cartons are dispersive, not insulative, as others have pointed out, so okay for killing echoes in a recording room but hopeless for stopping sound leakage.
Hope this helps or at least provides amusement…
I don't get why you should soundproof the room whilst you build up lots of passive agression against your housemate. You'll eventually just explode anyway.
A lot easier just to talk to him/her. See if you can suggest a "quiet" time or the like - no loud noises after 9pm or something. Most people are pretty reasonable, and they mayn't even know how much noise they're making if they haven't been in your position before.
If the issue not being able to get to sleep / stay asleep then to be honest I think you will be better off getting some cheap foam earplugs.
I got a puppy a year ago and he used to whine through the night all the time - I started wearing cheap foam earplugs that you can get from any chemist for around $0.99 and I didn't hear a peep through the night.
To this day I still wear them a few times a week, especially when the birds are up early and squawking outside of my window. If you are interested these are they type that I usually get (different brand) and they work perfectly:
http://www.philpalombi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ear-pl…
Blast One Direction day and night until he gets the point
Duct tape. Up to you how you want to use it ;D
just get ear plugs!
Some old carpet and underlay will do wonders, they throw away stacks of it at carpet shops. May look a bit silly though! Also put foam sealing around the door jams.