sound proofing my basement workshop.

I have a workshop in my block basement and directly above is my <1 year old boy. I need to soundproof the cieling so I dont keep him awake.

I've beem looking at

Standard Handbook of Acoustics and Build a recording studio on a budget by Everest.... more or less standard texts. WWW.partsexpress.com

I "sound-proofed" my basement walls and ceilings with ROXUL sound and fire barrier insulation. Bought it at the Depot. I found its okay but not 100%. Maybe multiple layers of the 2" blue styrofoam SM , it will cost alot but might do the best job at keeping the ound down.

Marty

I "sound-proofed" my basement walls and ceilings with ROXUL sound and fire barrier insulation. Bought it at the Depot. I found its okay but not 100%. Maybe multiple layers of the 2" blue styrofoam SM , it will cost alot but might do the best job at keeping the ound down.

Marty

I "sound-proofed" my basement walls and ceilings with ROXUL sound and fire barrier insulation. Bought it at the Depot. I found its okay but not 100%. Maybe multiple layers of the 2" blue styrofoam SM , it will cost alot but might do the best job at keeping the sound down.

Marty

Mass is your friend, foam adds very little to noise reduction.... ditto for fiberglass. Double layers of sheetrock, decoupled from the ceiling. You ought to be able to get a 30dB reduction without getting too crazy... better than that takes some care.

High frequencies are far easier to kill off than low frequencies

Watch for air leakage, if air can get through, sound will too.

Cyclotronguy

I found "quet barrier" on scratch and dent listing for $165 a 4.5 x 20 foot roll. 2lbs / square foot. (regular $360 a roll)

I think I would prefer nailing this up to my joists over putting up 2 layers of sheetrock with isolation hangers.

and who knows, maybe one layer of sheetrock will still end up covering this stuff in the future?

You might try looking into marine diesel engine sound proofing material...

Standing on the deck with 2 of them pumping out 500HP under your feet and still being able to hear someone is amaizing. Open a hatch and you'l think you just fell into one of them and a bomb went off.

Hy,
Body noise is your biggest enemy. Put rubber feet under the machines or under the cabinets they stand on. Normally, the noise goes into the structure and is reemitted from large surfaces, aka walls.
I have a shaper, a lathe and a mill in my basement. Before I put rubber under the corners, everyone in the house knew when shaper oor mill were running. Afterwards, silence!
A guy I know put his mill RF45 on rubber feet, which reduced the noise to something similar to a washing machine or a dryer with heavy load it...that´s achiveable without high costs.
Lathe noise, since it is not intermitting, is not such a big problem.
It´s good to get the machine running and cutting and then check the noise it makes in the room you want to silence.
I thought my machines were quiet..until I stepped into my flat while the shaper was running. It was calmer standing next to it than standing in the room above..

Cheers,
Johann

thanks. my lathe is on rubber feet now.

the biggest compaint item would have to be the chop saw! Duh! so I dont chop saw at nap time. The machines dont much wake him it's the opening tool box drawers, talking, bandsawing working in steel welding table. etc... the "clinky" higher freq noises. and the tool changer is clunky.

thanks, Dan

I built a bathroom over a kitchen and was worried about the noise transmission so I put in 12 " of glass fibre insulation into the 6" floor void. The kitchen had a 1/2" thick plasterboard ceiling that was plastered. Its really good! the only noise you can hear in the kitchen is when the toilet seat is dropped and when some ones foot squeaks on getting into the bath. Both of these are caused by direct mechanical coupling into the floor. Hard foam is useless for sound proofing. The sound insulation yatchs use for their engine compartments are based on a lead/soft foam laminate($$$). In the UK there are sound proofing quilting available to go in the ceiling/floor voids of houses.(but it only available 120 miles away from where I live).
Frank

Were you more worried about noise from the
bathroom getting into the kitchen, or from
the kitchen to the bathroom? Sometimes it's
better to just have a noisy vent fan in the
bathroom, keeps the women folk from running
the water when they're in there.



As far as the one-year old being disturbed
by the shop noise, I would say do not do any
soundproofing at all. Kids can fall asleep
in quite noisy environments, mine always had
trouble in dead quiet rooms.

I distinctly recall my daughter having colic
when she was less than a year old. No sleep
for weeks.

Finally I got fed up and decided to at least
get some laundry done in the middle of the
night, so I put her in her carseat and took
her down to the shop. I put clothes in the
dryer, and put the carseat on top of that.

While this was going on I though, I might as
well clean up the shop while I can. So I began
puttering away. Half hour later I noticed my
daughter was fast asleep on the dryer. This
became my fallback, I would put her on "air
fluff" in extreme circustances. I also realized
that she would fall asleep almost instantly - if
she was being driven around in my pickup truck.

She's 17 now. She still can't stay awake in
that truck!

Jim

That's what I was thinking. I bet all but the higher frequency sudden noises would be no problem for the kid. In fact, the lower freqs would probably soothing.
One trick for helping babies to sleep used to be a ticking alarm clock (back when alarm clocks ticked) which was supposed to be an approximation of mom's heartbeat.
I bet the background sounds of Dad tinkering would be similarly soothing, as long as you don't drop a wrench on the concrete floor.