Soundproof Finished Garage - Pictures!

I hope I've posted this in the correct forum. Sorry if I posted it in the wrong one. I wasn't sure whether or not it should go in Acoustics or Studio Construction because it seems to fit both categories. Hello, my family and I finished off our garage about a year and a half ago. We had some people come out and finish it off; now it's a room. The walls all have insulation in them and are boarded up with wood. My friends and I like to play our instruments but it can get extremely loud. Our neighbors are already threatening us, etc... I've been reading these forums for the past week and there is a ton of information to be learned. It's a great forum and thanks for all of the help and things that I have already been taught in one week. I saw that Sketchup 6 was released so I 3D modeled my garage up to scale to ask for some help. We are pretty loud. I am pumping out around 200 watts through a bass cabinet, my friend is running 90 watts through a guitar amp, and my other friend has I believe a 24 inch bass drum and he hits like John Bonham meets Jon Theodore. (Extremely Loud Drummer!) I do not have a Radio Shack Sound Level Meter but I should probably run and get one soon. The problem is that sound is leaking through it. When I'm in there at night, I hear people talking as they walk past it. I don't believe the problem is in the wood used or the insulation, but merely in the garage door and the window. I live in a developed neighborhood and somehow ended up on a street where older people surround my house. The houses are fairly close to each other. My garage is at the front. From my house, the people complaining on the window side are about luckily 35 feet away. The people not complaining on the left are about 10 feet away. Across the street, it must be 100 feet away but they're complaining as well. The door is made of tin. :roll: I feel as if the garage door almost amplifies the sound that we create. The window seems to be very thin as well; ironically, the neighbors on that side of the room are the ones complaining. On the other side of the room, there are parts where outside you can barely hear the noise. We have stuffed the panels in the garage door with insulation which helped drastically but there is still a ton of sound coming in and out of it. Besides these things, I would like to find a way to prevent sound (to the best of my ability) from escaping the room. I'm basically a novice when it comes to soundproofing and acoustics. I have never worked with anything but I'm excited to learn and try my best. The room is a 20 feet by 20 feet except the window extends the room by about two feet. From the ground to the sealing, it's 8 feet. From the ground to the overhang towards the back of the room, it's 11 and 1/2 feet. The little room in the back is for a water heater which is basically silent. The sealing also is at an angle for about 14 inches and then it levels off and is perpendicular to the floor; this is on both the left and the right of the room. I believe the walls are roughly 4 inches thick. The window is 6 feet by 3 feet. There is an air conditioning unit on the other side of the room as well. The floor is complete concrete but we have three carpets in there to try and keep the sound down, though it's not working that well. I'm not sure if replacing the garage door with a heavy wood door would help or if there are any other options such as a heavily insulated one. I'm also interested in using a window plug for the window, but in the topics that I read, I'm still a little confused as to how they work. http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=239 I've considered using this to try and keep the bass down too: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7278 The problem is that the room is almost completely sealed, but the garage door and the window I believe are what the problems are. I'm not sure though if I fix these, then if it will really help. Does anybody have any suggestions? I would like solutions in all price ranges if it's possible. Money is an issue but I would still like to see if there are any solutions possible for long term. The sound itself does not bother me. I could care less if the room sounds like the worst piece of garbage ever with jellybeans and evil smurfs running around screaming all day. I will worry about the acoustics after because the actual loudness is my main concern. Thanks for the help.

Hai BootsyGraham,

BootsyGraham wrote:

I hope I've posted this in the correct forum. Sorry if I posted it in the wrong one. I wasn't sure whether or not it should go in Acoustics or Studio Construction because it seems to fit both categories.

This looks the right place for now. Let's first focus on construction, than acoustics. Would you please fill in your profile to a bit more detail. Further more I'd advise you to read them stickies again. This forum is the best resource out there and there's lotsa info. Maybe you could post more detailed info on your garage. Take some pictures, likely some detailed constructions pix. Like how are your walls etc. Doors, windows, AC etc are indeed most likely sound leaks. But if your walls are crummy, fixing the garage door and windows won't bring you the ultimate solution you're looking for.

I'm not sure if replacing the garage door with a heavy wood door would help or if there are any other options such as a heavily insulated one. I'm also interested in using a window plug for the window, but in the topics that I read, I'm still a little confused as to how they work.

You need mass, so replacing is a very good option.

The floor is complete concrete but we have three carpets in there to try and keep the sound down, though it's not working that well.

For Isolation it won't do much. Having carpet will kill some acoustic matter called Flutter Echo. Is the carpet fire proof?

The problem is that the room is almost completely sealed, but the garage door and the window I believe are what the problems are. I'm not sure though if I fix these, then if it will really help.

you say "almost" sealed. Almost don't cut it. Let's look at your walls first. Take out that camera and take detailed pictures and tell us what you see. Sound isolation is not magic, it's pure science.

Welcome to the forum, BootsyGraham. You mentioned that you've spent about a week here and have learned a lot so far. That's good. 8) But there are some things you missed in the "Before You Post" announcement, such as including your location in your profile. This is a worldwide resource, and it is imperative that we know what continent you're on. The first thing you should do is order Rod's most excellent book so that you can get a thorough single-voice authoritative overview of soundproofing. Not to pick on you, but the fact that you mentioned having carpets in your room in an effort to reduce the amount of sound exiting the room is an indication to me that you need a lesson in acoustic treatments vs. sound isolation. (And carpets are horrible as acoustic treatments for the most part, by the way... :roll:) While you're waiting on your shipment of Rod's book, study more threads here, especially those linked from the "Reference Area" announcement. I'm also quite partial to my own monster project thread, for obvious reasons. 8) I really think you'll be well served by studying it from the beginning. Your isolation goals and neighborhood issues are similar to my own. You'll see the great lengths I have been going through for over two years to achieve my goals of a room that will allow me to play my acoustic drum kit in a very aggressive manner with fellow rock/metal musicians without bothering neighbors or my bride in the house. I must warn you before you venture over to my thread that it is very long, is still very much a work in progress, and my plans changed pretty significantly over the course of time. You can benefit from my lessons learned -- just be careful not to consider my initial drawings to be "the way to go" because they are not. Bottom line, your garage conversion was done extremely poorly if soundproofing was your goal. Nothing short of a complete gutting and major retrofit construction project will give you the results you are looking for, or even results you'd find even slightly satisfactory. Beware of soundproofing snake oil CRAP that you may have encountered in your research before now. Contrary to the overly optimistic and/or fraudulent claims on the Web sites of such purveyors, there are no quick or easy or inexpensive solutions to your problem. A notable exception is Green Glue, although it's hardly quick or easy or inexpensive, and it's important to note that it alone is not the panacea you seek. Please post back with more information after you've studied up a bit more, and feel free to ask questions. :) We're here to help and learn from each other. --Keith :mrgreen:

It sounds like you and your garage have quite a huge task ahead of you to soundproof it from those kinds of "jam" levels. I pretty much think you might be deluding yourself a bit to think that there are any quick or cheap fixes to getting that garage to the point of completely soundproofed (that is an acceptable STC for your neighbors and noise ordinances) without ripping everything out of there you have done already. Its ok, almost all of us have learned from mistakes, my last garage conversion was ridiculously fruitless in the manner i had tried to soundproof. Like carpet, eggcrate foam, and no idea what 2 leaf, 3 leaf, 4 leaf walls were..lol. I lurked on this site for 1 year reading through the threads and taking notes of materials, construction techniques and suppliers and budgeted for the next conversion. Well i moved into my new home and have started doing the build (Cavityfilling...Not the Dentists JOb thread) and have about 3 months into just the ripping out of the old walls and subsequent beef up of the exterior walls and attic space along with filling all gaps and holes and cracks n' things and repairing electrical runs. I just finished putting 2 layers of drywall on my ceiling and will be framing soon. But its no easy task...but i know in the end it will be awesom. I too will be jamming with my band and have the neighbor issues and ordinance issues, so i am building a room in room design. You guys may find that is your only solution to keeping things sane. Garage doors, standard windows, and air conditioner units all need to be redesigned or replaced...these leak sound like a sive. Read up here on every thread if you can...theres a wealth of knowledgeable people here.

Take some jpegs of the garage if you can it'll help to figure out what you got going on there. :D

I'm so sorry it's taken so long to get the pictures up. I really appreciate the responses. I expected it not to be a quick and easy fix and I'm really excited to read and learn. I'll post some pictures really soon. I've been sick this past week. Thanks a lot! Edit: I also hope I fixed everything in my profile correctly. I'll probably have the pictures up within the next few hours. I re-read the help topic and I hope I followed all of the instructions properly. Thanks.

Get well soon! Being sick sucks... :evil:

Here are some pictures that I took today. I hope they're detailed enough and I hope I don't use way too much bandwidth. I didn't see a limit but I wanted to try and be detailed enough. The only holes inside of the room, from what I've seen so far, are from the actual garage door. Everything else is sealed off tight; including the air conditioning unit. Over the weeked I'll most likely buy the "Digital-Display Sound-Level Meter" from RadioShack. These are the garage door and corner shots.

sharward wrote:

Get well soon! Being sick sucks... :evil:

Thanks. I hate being sick. :(

Here are a ton more. I tried to get the best shots possible. If anybody would like to see anywhere else, I can try and get a better or more detailed shot. These are all of the window shots to the left of the room.

Here is the back of the room. There is a refridgerator and three doors. The door in the middle is the water heater. There is a pipe at the back that leads outside and into the washing machine in the room adjacent to this one. That's a bed and there is a six foot raise in the roof that leads down to the left side of the room at an angle.

Here is the corner from where the water heater is. The other two pictures of the garage door are from the outside. It is tin. You can see in between the frame and door. From the inside, light can be seen at certain points coming into the room.

I also went inside of the attict which is above the entire garage. Here are some pictures of that.

Sorry you guys. I'll resize all of my pictures. :oops: Edit: There we go. I resized every picture and redid the first three so that they became transparent. Hopefully it helps a little bit. :D

GOod pics. You know, i don't know how you are really going to achieve any useful soundproofing that will further satisfy your neighbors for two reasons. One is, you've already set a basis by playing loud so that the neighbors get angry, and so they'll be pre programmed to get irate even if you managed to reduce the noise to lower levels. The history has kinda been put forth that there is a rock band in a garage in what i gather is a quiet neighborhood. Second thing, to achieve any soundproofing that will keep your DB levels to make the neighbors happy (less the history) will require you to really think about dealing with every facet of the space. This means removing the garage door or sealing it with a wall, sealing every crack and hole in the structure, creating mass where mass doesn't exist (stud bays, windows etc), removing existing inner drywall, building a room in room (neccassary for your playing), and on and on. If you are really serious about it, and really want to keep playing without the cops showing up or having bad relations with those neighbors who tolerate the noise (its not noise to us musicians right..lol), then you have to invest the time and money and hard labor and planning to get a plan together to retrofit it into a proper studio or jam place. Plan to spend at least 3k minimally, but more like 5-10k for a relatively nice, "soundproof" place to play. It will take a few months to build and deal with everthing. Plan to think about things like safety, room acoustics, whether you want to render the garage door useless, how long you want to be there...etc. Read through EVERY thread here, i have and sometimes read through them several times, taking notes and bookmarking specific conversations. You can never learn too much and you learn alot by others mistakes. You may want to forgo this whole thing and rent a place to play? But unfortunately there is no quick fix, or acoustic foam or thing you can just put on the walls to help with isolation. You need mass and air and mass to stop TL (bass waves) mids, from just passing through common construction walls and ceilings.