Tips for Soundproofing a Room

LESLIE: Joanne in South Carolina is dealing with some noisy neighbors. Tell us about your living situation. Do you own your place? What’s going on?

JOANNE: I live in a townhouse and my main bedroom and bathroom walls are connected to the walls of the townhouse next to mine …

LESLIE: OK.

JOANNE: … by basically a concrete wall and drywall on my side and drywall on their side.

TOM: Mm-hmm.

JOANNE: Now when my neighbors have company, they are in the rooms next to these two rooms of mine …

TOM: Right.

JOANNE: … and I can hear sounds very easily; even though I do not know what is being said. And I would like to know how to soundproof between the concrete wall and my drywall to block most of the sounds coming through these two rooms.

TOM: You know, if you’re building a home from scratch, it’s easy to plan soundproofing into this. Owens Corning, for example, has a product called Quietzone insulation that can be framed into the wall. But if the wall is already up, you know you can’t tear it apart.

One of the things that you might want to think about doing is adding an additional layer of drywall on top of the drywall that’s there now; separated by something called Green Glue. It’s basically a sound-deadening product that goes in between the layers of drywall. And there also are available sound-deadening drywall panels themselves that have sort of battens that are sort of built right into it that are used in commercial applications such as recording studios and places like that that will quiet things.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and you’re not going to sacrifice that much, you know, space into your room. You’re dealing with the thickness of drywall.

The other thing that you can do is hang some draperies along that wall; make it a design choice. That’ll help deaden the sound. Add more art work. You know, add things to the wall that will sort of buffer that sound. But the best bet is to put that sort of sound-deadening drywall product over it.

TOM: Joanne, I hope that helps you out. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.