Noise/sound is an inherent part of our life. City dwellers are the main victim of this noise issue. Sound is an unstoppable force or energy you couldn’t touch or stop it with your own hands. It can travel anywhere by using any media. But the concerning part is, it becomes irritating when it surpasses the tolerance level. It is also a threat to our human body.
So, what to do? I know you are messed up with this noise issue in your living apartment. In this article, you will find your answer about how to reduce noise in a room or apartment.
There are so many ways to cut out noise from your room or apartment. You will find all the techniques as the content goes along. Just carefully read the full article. I am here to help you get over the annoying noise issues you are facing in your day-to-day life.
How to Reduce Noise in Room or Apartment
Sounds can travel through the air. There might be a subtle gap between your two rooms where the sounds might be passing through. Or, it could be the wall you are using is not really enough to block the sounds between the rooms.
Best Ways How to Reduce Noise From Rooms
So you have to take some necessary steps if you really want to reduce unwanted noise between your rooms.
1. Use Drywall
Using a normal wall could be the reason you are hearing unwanted appliances noise in your next room, which is really annoying. What you could do is replace your wall with drywall.
Drywall has the ability to reduce noise through walls. A regular wall couldn’t do it like drywall. So, my suggestion would be to use drywall with soundproofing panels.
Drywall panels are basically a mixture of rigid mineral gypsum, viscoelastic, and ceramics. Those mentioned ingredients are strong enough to transmit sound waves.
2. Seal the Gaps
Sound can pass through all possible areas if it finds a way. So what you have to do is, identify those areas of your room and seal them with proper materials like using a carpet or a pad beneath your room’s door. Because there’s always a little space under the door, that could be a way that sounds are passing through.
As you do have not the ability to stop the sound or noise completely. But you can block those gaps to reduce the noise from your room.
3. Use a Bookshelves
This is an interesting way to block the noise in your room. Sounds need space to roam around if you use bookshelves and fill the shelves with your favorite books that could solve your existing problem.
Using bookshelves will also help you to gain knowledge by keeping books in your room. Moreover, it would be a way to reduce noise through walls if you install the bookshelves against the wall.
4. Control Reflected Noise
Noise can be reflected in the hard surfaces like walls, ceilings, floors, or other hard surfaces of your room. This reflecting transmission of sounds is making the sound more sturdy.
To control this reflection of noise, you can usefully cover bare walls or use a ceiling attached with something soft. That will reduce the sounds in your room.
Best Ways How to Soundproof a Room in an Apartment
Noise is an inevitable thing for city dwellers, especially for those who are living beside the road or in a city apartment. Most of the apartments are established beside the road or nearby the road. So, the noise has become a part of all the apartment residents. If you are one of them and searching for an answer on how to soundproof your room, you are in the right place, buddy!
The article is all about how to soundproof your room from external noise. I hope all the suggestions I will provide in this article will become pretty much helpful for you to cut out the noise from your apartment.
What you will do is follow these simple and budget-friendly steps. You will get over your current problem.
1. Identify the hotspot
Noise or sound is just like water. It can transmit through the air and has the ability to reach wherever it wants. You couldn’t kill it but you can control it by identifying your rooms or apartments’ weak zones.
After identifying the zones, you have to work on them. Suppose, your dividing walls between the two rooms are the weakest part as we have seen that most of apartment walls are thin and noise friendly.
What you can do is, you can use soundproofing blankets. Most recording studios use soundproofing blankets to reduce noise because soundproofing blankets have the ability to reduce the sound level by almost 40%.
Another thing you can do is combine the soundproof blankets with DIY wall materials. That will enhance the chance to cut out the external noise from your room.
2. Soundproofing windows
If you can hear the outside chaos by sitting on your sofa, there might be a huge hallway in your apartment. You couldn’t fill the hallway as the design demanded the hallway space.
Doors and windows are considered the weakling of an apartment designed with lots of gaps. The sound could easily pass through those gaps.
If you want to get over this noise issue in your room, you should soundproof your door and windows first.
If I talk about the window first, then there are so many seal kits for windows in the market. You can use it to reduce the noise in your apartment. Seal kits of windows added another glass layer to your window by providing a window seal track installed in front of the existing window.
Another thing you can consider is that you can customize your own window plug. You can plug it into your window frame. That can cut out the external noise.
3. Block the Doors
All of us know that windows and doors are one of the main sources of noise entering your apartment. Most of the outside noises are passing through the door. All the apartment doors are usually hollow. So, it is obvious that sounds are resonating quickly there.
What you can do is, replace the hollow door with the solid one. A heavy thick layered material door can help you to get relief from the external noise. It blocks the outside sounds from entering your room.
Another trick you can apply is that you can use acoustic seal kits to eliminate the gaps around the door’s edge which can go a long way to preventing noise transfer through your door.
4. Installing a White Noise Machine
White noise machines are proven very handy to reduce noise. The best part of the white noise machine is it basically replaces the annoying noise with white noise. This means the sound that the white noise machine produces is not like the annoying noise.
Many apartment residents started using it and found the best result. Suppose you are searching for a permanent solution to soundproof your apartment. A white noise machine would be the best option for you. It can eliminate half of the external noise.
Furthermore, white noise machines are very much capable of blocking sound between the rooms. If you have a newborn in your house, then installing a white noise machine could protect the newbie from unwanted noise without wasting any time. Even you can sleep well during the night after installing it.
So, if you are looking for a perfect answer to how to soundproof a room in an apartment, I would suggest buying a white noise machine.
5. Use Soundproof Curtains
Soundproof curtains are exactly the same as regular curtains. The best thing about soundproof curtains is it is designed in a way that allows them actually to reduce the amount of noise.
You have done much of the work if you have followed the following techniques, such as soundproofing walls, doors, and windows. But you could be missing somewhere, so you can follow the approaches below if you need to tackle them. Installing Soundproof Curtains is the first thing. Maybe you’re curious how curtains can block sound. It’s a curious thing, but they prohibit sound from penetrating because these curtains are not standard curtains constructed of soundproofing fabrics that are designed to filter sound out.
This is another foolproof idea to reduce the noise in your apartment. By using soundproof curtains, you can reduce almost 50% of the noise.
Moreover, you can use the soundproof curtains on your next room door. That will help you to block sound between rooms.
6. Cover Your Floor with a Rug and a Pad
You already know that in a traffic environment like a touch, nothing dumb sounds. So it is worth tossing a heavy rug down if you have rough floors. But here is a well-established tip: If you place it underneath a density mat, it will maximize your rug’s noise squash capacity.
A thick rug can also dampen noise coming in from downstairs neighbors. So, if you are facing the same issue with your neighbor, you can cover your floor with a rug and pad.
It is one of the practically proven hacks for soundproofing your apartment.
These are the most proven hacks for reducing the noise from your apartment. As well as by using those tricks you could probably block sounds between the rooms and even it really helps you to find a way how to reduce noise through walls.
Myths: That Won’t Work
Now I am going to discuss some myths to get rid of these sound issues. Many people believe that these are the solutions to get over a noise issue, and the funniest part is I have seen many apartment residents using those techniques to block the noise.
Those are the myths. That won’t work to reduce or block the noise. Let’s see some of the common soundproofing myths:
7. Ignore the egg crates
Egg cartons and crates don’t do anything to reduce the noise. You will be able to absorb vibrations that hold any of them. Egg cartons are blemishing and are mainly a waste of attempts at your soundproofing the apartment.
8. Skip the Foam Rubber
Generally, soundproofing foam doesn’t work, and it can be harmful but Via the brittle texture, the sound seems to move correctly. It can burn like crazy as well. Please do not use it as a soundproofing technique. It raises the chances of fire hazards in your apartment.
9. Never Consider Mattresses as A Soundproofing Technique.
A mattress might deaden the noise coming through the wall slightly. But it generally doesn’t work. You would likely need multiple mattresses lining up across your wall. But more importantly, you’re inviting mold, mildew, and critters to set up shop in your new wall decor.
Conclusion
As I have mentioned above, this article is all about how to reduce noise in your room or apartment. By using those above-written techniques, you can easily cut out the noise from your apartment.
However, it does not only help you to reduce the noise from your apartment. There are also some tricks about how to reduce noise between rooms and those techniques that might help you block the noise through the walls.
If neither of those tricks works for you then I will suggest you ask your landlord or give your landlord a signal regarding your issues. But, those hacks I have given above are practically experienced hacks. Many people started to implement those hacks and get adequate results.
Keep in mind that you could not eliminate the sound 100% from your apartment by using those soundproofing techniques. But you will reduce the sound significantly and create the sanctuary you’re searching for.
