The walls of your house are a major source of any unwanted noise coming into your house from your neighbours’.
When we purchase a new house or move to a new location, acoustics is probably the last thing on our minds. We usually pay extra attention to the view that the balcony offers, factors like temperature control, and so on. In doing so, we often tend to forget one of the most important things: Will I be able to sleep here peacefully, without any unnecessary noise from outside bothering me?
Sound is beautiful, but only as long as it is pleasant to the ears or does not cause any discomfort. Loud sound at the wrong time and wrong place can only be termed as noise. Noise makes your life stressful, disturbs your sleep, and creates a lot of unnecessary chaos.
The sound transfer is caused as a result of the airborne noises. These sound waves strike against the walls and the variation in pressure causes the walls to vibrate. This energy is then transferred through the walls. It is radiated in the form of airborne sound and transmitted to the other side of the wall.
Blame it on the contractor and poor engineering
You must be wondering- what causes sound to pierce through the walls of your house? The main reason for this is that while constructing buildings, promoters apply all possible means to slash down their cost. They, therefore, end up building poor quality walls, which easily allow sound to pierce through them.
If you are living in an apartment where you have to share the same wall with your neighbour, trust me you will get a brief insight of all their discussions, and may as well become a part of their family.
If you are guilty of eavesdropping, there is good news for you. You can eliminate the noise coming through your walls by soundproofing them, and get rid of the stress of having to deal with unwanted noise. Just like you are able to hear what your neighbours are discussing, it is quite sure that your neighbors, too, are well aware of what is going on in your house.
Soundproofing a poor-quality thin wall will also help to protect your privacy.
Your bedroom should be the most relaxing part of your house where you can simply crash without any concern. However, I understand how heartbreaking it can be if your sleep is interrupted by a loud thud from your neighbours dwelling next door or the scream of a child who is not even yours.
Of all the measures that you can take to soundproof your house, you can opt for using a drywall. The drywall can be used as an excellent noise-reducing agent as it is made of layers of gypsum.
These layers are further bifurcated by viscoelastic polymer layers. This entire structure is designed in such a way that it acts as an insulation and helps to absorb the noise and prevents it from being transmitted from one room to another.
You do not have to tear up or bring down your existing wall to be able to install a drywall. A drywall can simply be put up as a layer over your existing concrete wall, and you are good to go!
Your choice of material may not be appropriate
The structural material which the walls of your room are made of, also plays an important role in deciding how much external sound will seep into your room. Brick walls allow a lot of sound to enter the room in comparison to stucco board or vinyl sliding.
Based on the design of your room, you can opt for a special kind of tiles that can help to dampen tiles. These sound dampening tiles are not only visually and aesthetically appealing, but they are also suitable for formal places like conference rooms, commercial offices, and co-working spaces, where reverberation or external noise can cause a huge disturbance.
Adding layers of carpets, thick curtains, foam, or any other substance that can absorb noise, is a great idea and can help to shut out external noise to some extent and result in effective soundproofing.
You may not have arranged your room properly
No matter how naive this sounds, the way you arrange the furniture in your room, matters in terms of soundproofing your room. If your room has holes and cracks that have been unattended for quite a while now, you can simply keep your cupboard right in front of the hole/crack. This will help to eliminate unnecessary external noise to some extent.
A spacious room, where furniture is kept far apart from one another, is unable to absorb any external noise. Therefore, even the slightest sound from outside can cause disturbance. It is important to understand what kind of room arrangement will help to eliminate the most noise.
Your neighbors’ Television may be wall mounted
If you can take note of every time your neighbor switches on his television, it may be a possibility that your neighbor has mounted a television or any other entertainment gadget on the common wall that you both share. The wall serves as a medium for transmission of the sound waves, and therefore amplifies the sound. Look for measures that will help to reduce noise through walls.
Final Words
Apart from the walls, the ceiling and flooring, the material which they are made of, and the insulation over them, also play a significant role in determining how much sound will be allowed into the room. If you are looking forward to maintaining solitude in your room, even though your residence is located on a busy road, you need to equip your house with good quality insulating materials. Design your room wisely!
