There are a number of reasons for soundproofing a room. Privacy, noise pollution reduction – the list goes on and on. You can soundproof a room in a home or office, or you can take on a larger project by soundproofing a building. Today we’re going to be taking a look at acoustic design, soundproofing tips, and the best way to soundproof a room or building.
Soundproofing Tips and Acoustic Design
Reasons for Soundproofing
Before we get to the how of soundproofing, let’s talk about the why. What are the reasons for soundproofing a room or building? There are actually quite a number of reasons for taking on a soundproofing project. Here’s some of the more common reasons:
- Privacy – Privacy can be a matter of not wanting others to hear you, and also not wanting to hear others. Privacy can also mean making sure that confidential discussions are not heard in a professional setting, such as a lawyer’s office or a doctor’s office.
- Preventing Hearing Problems – If your home or office is near a highway or other noisy place, then you know all too well about the intense constant drone of noise that a highway can expose you to. Over time the exposure to this elevated level of sound can cause lasting hearing damage, all of which can be avoided with proper soundproofing techniques.
- Comfort and Enhanced Concentration – Home should be a quiet and comfortable place. Your office should be a place where you can concentrate to get work done. Good acoustic design and soundproofing can help to increase comfort and concentration.
- Good Manners – If you have a noisy hobby, such as playing the tuba, or if your business makes a lot of noise, then you have to care about your neighbours. Soundproofing your practice room or business facilities is the best way to have good manners about noise.
- Being in Regulation – We mentioned before about good soundproofing as a way to be considerate to your neighbours. Well, in some places it can go beyond being polite, as it can be required by law that you maintain a level of noise pollution control if your hobby or business is particularly noisy.
The Best Way to Soundproof a Room
Now that you know a little about the reasons for soundproofing a building or room, let’s take a look at some of the ways to go about implementing a soundproofing solution. Acoustical engineering has been a field of study and research for a long time. There has always been a need to control sound levels, whether that be to damping sounds or to make sounds travel further, like throughout an opera house before the days of electric amplification. Due to the many years of research and development that have gone into sound and noise control, there have been several meaningful advances in soundproofing and soundproofing materials.
Air Gap
If you’ve ever been inside a professional recording studio then you know about what it takes to soundproof a room. Those kinds of recording studios usually have acoustic material on the walls and ceilings, but they will also often utilise an air gap. This means effectively having a room within a room, and the air between the two rooms acts as the air gap which is one of the most effective forms of soundproofing. The problem with this system of soundproofing is that it takes up a lot of space due to the interior room being smaller than the room that houses it. Fortunately, there are other methods of soundproofing a room.
Air Gap on a Smaller Scale
There needs to be some sort of empty space between the surface of a wall or ceiling that the sound waves impact and the rest of the wall. Acoustic material, such as soundproofing panels, provide this kind of sound-deadening space. The soundproofing tiles that you’ll find at BetaBoard are made of polyester fibre and are essentially hollow or porous. This allows for there to be empty space between the surface of the soundproofing panel and the wall. This acts as a mini-air gap that is surprisingly effective.
Angles
The angles of high-quality soundproofing panels look like the angles you’d find on a stealth fighter airplane, and there’s a good reason for that. Stealth fighters are designed and engineered with those angles to make radar bounce off of them in such a way so as to make them seem not there. Good soundproofing panels, like the ones you’ll find at BetaBoard, do the same with sound by making the sound waves bounce off of them in ways that reduce the energy of the sound wave and thus make everything quieter.
First-Rate Acoustic Material Available at BetaBoard
High-quality soundproofing panels go a long way in good acoustic design and soundproofing. BetaBoard is the leading source of high-quality acoustic panels. We are ceiling tile and plasterboard suppliers, and suppliers of many other kinds of architectural and building materials. If you’d like to organise a quote or browse our available materials, you can visit one of our 5 stores, or get in touch online.
