Soundproof my Garage

[bdk]

I just bought a place, it has a two car detached garage, that is located in the backyard. Fairly far from any neighbors, so some sound leakage would be totally acceptable. I don't need complete soundproofing, or even professional level, or even recording level soundproofing. I jsut need it to be quiet enough so my neighbors don't call the police on me.

I understand that sound will indeed escape and there's nothing I can do about it, but I want to deaden the sound. Does anyone have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE building a room within a room BY THEMSELVES? Just wondering how it turned out, and whether all the "you can't do it" people are right.

I don't have much cash left after the down payment, so I'm hoping to do it myself.

[rty13ibz98]

ok, so your just looking to sound proof, not control? that is what it sounds like to me. 2 car garage...if you don't need it to be pretty, but need it to be cheap; i recommend getting some fiberglass insulation to put on your walls as they sit currently. after that depending on budget, build another wall or put moving blankets or large curtains over the top of them(this will make it more attractive, while creating a layer of dead air). don't neglect the garage doors, either. if you will be opening the doors alot, you will have to devise a way to facilitate that, but if not, build a false wall to adhere the insulation and blankets to. me personally, i would spend the extra money to build additional walls with insulation and sheetrock, bass traps, and hang moving blankets from the ceiling in order to control as well as proof. any additional info you can get from auralex.com. they have a guide called sound proofing 101 in a .pdf. very informative, plus i have 2 additional sources that aid in sound proof/control engineering. i am in no way an authority, just giving you my experiences.

rich

[gu1tar]

Install this in your garage.

http://www.quietsolution.com/html/qu...FQ0Bswod72NsiQ

[spacebard]

Originally Posted by gu1tar

Install this in your garage.

http://www.quietsolution.com/html/qu...FQ0Bswod72NsiQ

And it will cost you about $10000. Quietrock is really the best but it's really expensive. I wanted to build my home studio with these but it would have cost me about $8000 for a 13' x 13' room. So when I realize it was too much for my budget, I decided to go with mineral wool (safe n' sound) between 2 x 4 wood studs, acoustic panels like these:http://www.materiauxspecl.com/en/acoustic.html , resilient channels with 2 layers of gypsum board on each side of the stud wall and a lot of soundproof sealant. I did the same for the ceiling (my room is in the basement). I'm really satisfied with the results and my studio is not even completed yet.

[Rip]

floating interior walls.

[bdk]

Originally Posted by spacebard

And it will cost you about $10000. Quietrock is really the best but it's really expensive. I wanted to build my home studio with these but it would have cost me about $8000 for a 13' x 13' room. So when I realize it was too much for my budget, I decided to go with mineral wool between 2 x 4 wood studs, acoustic panels like these:http://www.materiauxspecl.com/en/acoustic.html , resilient channels with 2 layers of gypsum board on each side of the stud wall and a lot of soundproof sealant. I did the same for the ceiling (my room is in the basement). I'm really satisfied with the results and my studio is not even completed yet.

sounds good, but how much will it cost with sonopan stuff? And how much quieter is it? Like percentage wise.

[Rip]

http://www.revolutionaudio.ca/floatingfloor.html

Part 2 gives a way to float a wall.
There are variations on how you do it, but you can get an idea.

Im sure there are better resources but its a start.

[spacebard]

Originally Posted by bdk

sounds good, but how much will it cost with sonopan stuff? And how much quieter is it? Like percentage wise.

A 4' x 8' sonopan panel is $30 each, the specs are here on the brochure PDF link, http://www.materiauxspecl.com/en/acoustic.html
I think I could say that in my home studio, it is about 70%-80% quieter than before, it will be even more when i'll put the sonopan panel on the ceiling and the layers of gypsum board on the walls which are not installed yet. It would have been much quieter if my walls were made with steel studs instead of wood studs, but I didn't knew that at the time.

[stratoskier]

I finished up a garage studio last year. After much research, I wound up using a combination of thick rolled roofing (for mass, hung horizontally as the first layer), resilient channel (RC), soundboard, and 5/8" drywall. The soundboard and drywall are both hung on the RC channel, with non-matching joints and the drywall glued to the soundboard. Everything was hung to float top and bottom. It turned out well enough and the sound escapement is within acceptable limits for what I do. But be advised that if you go with the RC channel, you will learn to hate the stuff. So will the texturing guys. So will everyone else that comes near those things. Just my experience...
Bert

[Andy43]

I finished my studio about a year ago that I built from the ground up. It definitely gets the job done and it only cost about 10 grand total. So in your case, If you go as extreme as I did (double doors, staggered studs, RC channel, 2 layers of drywall, and no windows), you could probably get it done for about 5 grand, more or less depending on the size of the room.

Firstly, you should know that the ONLY way to effectively deaden sound is to have a mass/air/mass configuration. There are products out there that claim to "absorb" sound, but it just doesn't work that way. However, placing some of these materials in your "air" section will help a little with the acoustics.

The main thing you should worry about is that garage door. This has little to no mass and obviously doesn't have that mass/air/mass thing going for it like normal walls do. Do you park in the garage? If not, I'd recommend blocking these up with the correct techniques. If you do use the garage, then you can build a movable wall that folds up. But you HAVE to do something to that garage door.

[tobe]

Originally Posted by Andy43

I finished my studio about a year ago that I built from the ground up. It definitely gets the job done and it only cost about 10 grand total. So in your case, If you go as extreme as I did (double doors, staggered studs, RC channel, 2 layers of drywall, and no windows), you could probably get it done for about 5 grand, more or less depending on the size of the room.

Firstly, you should know that the ONLY way to effectively deaden sound is to have a mass/air/mass configuration. There are products out there that claim to "absorb" sound, but it just doesn't work that way. However, placing some of these materials in your "air" section will help a little with the acoustics.

The main thing you should worry about is that garage door. This has little to no mass and obviously doesn't have that mass/air/mass thing going for it like normal walls do. Do you park in the garage? If not, I'd recommend blocking these up with the correct techniques. If you do use the garage, then you can build a movable wall that folds up. But you HAVE to do something to that garage door.

I agree with alot of what Andy said. I too, built my own rehearsal/recording space about 5 years ago now. At the time it cost around 3500.00 and I did all the construction, and low and high voltage myself. Believe it or not, air is the best sound deadening device. If you need to cut down a lot of sound, doubled wall construction with a space in between is the way to go. However, if you just need to lower the db and keep the space tuned for sound, and not a recording environment, some sound damping material might be enough. That is IF your garage is far enough away from the neighbors, and how loud you play . If you are no longer going to use the garage for cars, I would recommend removing it completely and framing it in. DO NOT buy aurolex for sound damping! Its over priced, and there are other brands that are just as good at whole sale prices. I bought some good stuff off the web, I can can not remember where thou...just do a search. Good luck to you! Tobe

[jb4674]

Is the garage finished or unfinished? Andy has a good point about the garage door. Since most garage doors are flimsy by design, it's going to be really tough to get any decent amount of sound deadening from it based on principle alone. You're going to have to come up with a way to minimize the sound from escaping out of the garage, as the garage door will be your biggest enemy.

Post some pics of the process.

Jimmy

[Jamie]

I've built cheap rehearsal rooms by hand, using this method. This would only be a few hundred pounds.

1) Get a nailgun and some 2x4 inch untreated wood.

2) Build frames with this wood that are approximately 100mm less than the height of your garage. Reinforce these every 300mm vertically, and every 1200mm horizontally, with more 2x4 so you end up with grids that can be rested against your walls.

3) Get cheap carpet underlay, and wad it up in pads, tack it to the bottom of the frames.

4) Fix the frames to the garage wall in as sturdy a manner as possible, with more wadded carpet underlay between them and the walls to stop vibrations travelling as much as possible. Fix more 2x4 across the ceiling, and stud it at staggered 300mm centres with 1x2 inch wood.

5) Fill the 300x600mm gaps with fibreglass insulation RAW40. Dependent how clever you want to be, you can either:

6a) Fix 600x1200mm sheets of high-density plasterboard (gypsum you call it in US?) to the OUTSIDE of these frames i.e. the Garage wall side. The frames will quarter the gypsum sheets. Fix pond netting to the inside to stop the fibres floating out and polluting you. Then fabric cover the inside walls to form your walls. I buy cheap velvet and towelling.

6b) Fix the plasterboard to the inside of the frames to form your walls.

You can make this plasterboard several layers thick for more deadening.

7) Fix more plasterboard to the ceiling screwing it every 10cm to the studs you made, or even better if you can, slide it on top, and do the fabric thing.

The fabric thing means the rockwool deadens the sound from your instruments inside, its really good and cunning to make this 'inside-out' wall construction. But it depends on your lifting power, and how fiddly you want to make things.

To make your floor, again you will make a grid that sits about 1cm inside the new walls. Work your way from one side of the floor to the other, and place half-tennisballs under each intersection. Yes this works, and yes they are a f*cking pig to cut. Scissors, hacksaws, heated wires all work. But you wanted cheap.

Once your floor is floated on the tennisballs, cover it in more plasterboard. Again you want to stud at 300mm.

Once you've got all 6 fake walls, they will provide the bulk of your bass treatement. You then can seal them with acoustic silicon to provide a flexible airtight seal and reduce the treble escaping. Skimming the plasterboard, taping it and sealing it or simply doubleing up the layers also works.

For the garage door you could make frames half the width like gates, cover them in fabric on the inside and plasterboard on the outside, and mount them on hinges and furniture wheels. You can then roll them shut once you are inside.

I've done all of this before. This is the quick version. It will cost you about $400 I'd guess. And it will work. Its a pain to do but with a ripsaw, a mitre saw, a nailgun, facemasks, kneepads, a belt-fed electric screwdriver, some practice cracking plasterboard to the right size, and a few friends, it can be done in a weekend. Let me know if you want to know more.