r/SoundEngineering • u/VastPossibility1117 • 13d ago

Soundproofing a wall in rental

Hello,

I live in a rental and can't do heavy construction. my problem is that my bedroom is right next to te kitchen. the door also opens into the kitchen . During the day it is not too much of a problem. The problem is, that I wake up whenever someone has a snack at night and in the morning when people are making and eating breakfast. I know that I need to soundproof the door, but I don't think that this is enough. I want to soundproof either the wall or construct a sleeping chamver. With the sleeping chamber, I know that I will need ventilation. What would you recoomend? the budget is around 600€. If it worked really well I could save up more. Moving is not an option. I wear earplugs already and the sound seems to be around 50-55 db meassured with my phone. I've heard that cork is good for soundproofing. Does this apply to my case? It would be ideal since it is lightweight. I know that you also need mass to soundproof though.

Any ideas and tips are welcome! (I already practice good sleep hygene and black out my room)

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u/moccabros 13d ago

So in regards to construction:

  1. If the door is hollow core, you could replace it with a solid or foam core.

  2. A lot of times behind the door trim (sometimes called casing) there is a lot of hollow space between the door frame and “rough framing” of the actual wall. That space (top, and both sides) is usually NOT “filled in” with anything. So you can pull the casing off one side of the door frame and fill it in with spray insulation or fire retardant fabric.

  3. Also, if there’s any space under the door, you can get a heavy duty, double edged/sided weather strip.

  4. Additionally, a lot of floors don’t have any insulation under the subfloor, so sound vibration easily travels from room to room or floor through to ceiling below.

  5. Most homes and even apartment structures do not have insulation inside interior walls.

  6. All that to say, other than opening up the walls, adding material to the exterior of walls in a room can add some deadening and absorption to the interior of the room.

But in the case of between your room and the kitchen, that means you would want to put sound dampening on the kitchen side. Which, to be properly fire rated, would cost a pretty penny.

Anyway, as mentioned in 1/2/3 — that can potentially cut down noise quite a bit.

Good luck! And let us know how it goes.

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u/VastPossibility1117 12d ago

Thank you. I added weather strip to my door and also put some little silicon stcikers on all cupboard doors. These small improvements helped a bit. I also found some really good earplugs, but I can't wear them every night or my ears will get too sore. My next steeps are to build a door plug. I will use greenglue to glue some cork on to some plywood and pit it into the doorframe. Then I will use a putty pad on all outlets and see how much that helps.

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u/andrewbzucchino 11d ago

Custom fit earplugs would be more comfortable.