wow!!! what a great site this is!!!! i've read a lot of the posts here and have been enjoying myself immensely learning about how to approach sound reduction. it is a bit much to assimilate at once though, so i thought i'd post my problem, and how i was planning on approaching it, and get some help and feedback...
ok, so my wife and i just bought this house and have lived there for about a month and a half. i play guitar, she plays drums and we're in the fetal stages of forming a band. unfortunatly the neighbors -a woman and her elderly parents-on the one side of us are just miserable people, and i want to avoid any complications from us playing (we played one day and the father was craning his head over trying to figure out what was going on, i'm sure its only a matter of time before there is a confrontation). so, our house was built in 1920, has a full cinder block basement, hardwood flooring upstairs, plaster and lathe construction. when we played, you could barely hear anything at the front and back of the house (it seems that the front and back porches were added on and rather than do a full excavation, there is a cinder-blocked in crawl space with dirt--great for absorbing sound) but definitely audible along each side (which is the worst place for it to be loud). of course most of this sound emanated from the windows, but also rose up through the flooring of the house and since the furnace is right there, through all the duct work. so i'm planning on building a small practice room in the basement towards the front wall, as that is against the crawlspace that absorbs sound. so basically i'm looking at erecting three walls in a sort of a "U" shape-accounting for niches around the mechanicals--whereby the open end of the "U" is against the exterior/crawlspace wall. i was planning on doing the 6" footer/header wall with 2x4's 24' on center to each side of the plate. weaving owens fiberglass (pink panther) sound reducing insulation through the wall, then hanging a layer of 1/2" drywall + 1/2" homosote or foam insulation + 5/8" drywall on the inside. 1/2" drywall + 5/8" drywall on the outside. for the ceiling i would stuff the joists with the sound fiberglass, then do similar layering as for the inside wall. down the road i would add some acoustical treatment to tune the room up a bit... how does this approach sound? (no pun intended...lol!) i don't necessarily need total isolation, but do need to cut down on the sound by quite a bit. the only other issue is that i will have to soffit out around some duct work...i figured that framing out a soffit, stuffing it with insulation and doing the same interior layers would work well enough. am i on the right track? i don't want to spend a fortune, but i'm good with woodworking, etc and our other guitarist builds houses with a contractor, so i should be able to pull it off...
by the way, the foundation is 95% below ground--only about 15-18" above ground...
and i figure that when it comes time to sell, i can market it as a home theater...lol!!!!
basement rehersal space help...
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dbluefield
- Posts: 158
- Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2003 10:47 am
- Location: Marietta, GA, USA
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knightfly
- Senior Member
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- Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2003 11:11 am
- Location: West Coast, USA