Replies

1. 
   Gabe | Aug 05, 2003 04:47am | #1

   Spray foam the wall cavity and cover with cement board.

   Gabe

2. 
   gstringe | Aug 05, 2003 05:04am | #2

   Your supplier is correct...light foamy stuff is poor sound stopper.  You want to stop the sound..Use some of that granite you are sawing up.  Mass is the answer, along with isolation of one side from the other of your walls.  But remember that one square inch of opening will transmit as much sound as 100 square feet of standard stud wall with half inch drywall on each side.

1. 
   caseyr | Aug 05, 2003 05:55am | #3

   Hard, dense material tends to reflect sound waves back into the room.  Heavy resilient materials deaden the sound by causing the sound waves to vibrate the material which then dissipates the energy as heat.  An old car of mine had rubber impregnated horsehair mats to absorb sand, but I haven't seen those around for a while.  Light brittle foams don't do as well as foams that are resilient or flexible.   Sand is a great sound absorption material, so if you weren't interested in thermal insulation and wanted to do something cheap, filling the walls with sand should work - maybe even a bunch of sandbags if you really wanted to go cheap...  Cellulose insulation is reportedly a fairly decent sound dampener although I have not had experience with it - I assume you would want it in the dense pack.  (However, there is some debate as to how well cellullose insulation holds up to repeated dampening and drying - which may happen in your shop if you pressure wash the walls forcefully) 

   Isolating your saw should also help as sound energy is transmitted more readily thorugh solid materials like steel or wood than through air, so if your saw is attached to a workbench attached to an exterior wall, that wall could be acting like a sounding drum to transmit the sound outside the building. 

   So the ultimate sound proofing would be sound absorbing material in the room to absorb direct and reflected sound, dense hard walls to reflect the sound back into the room, acoustical isolation between the inner wall and framing and exterior walls, and resilient sound absorbing material between the walls - or something like that...

   Be aware that cement boards such as HardiPanel are not impervious to water if not painted.  If you hose down the inside frequently, you could end up with moisture migrating through the panel and making the space behind it damp. 

   The previous suggestion of sprayed in foam and cement board inner walls sounds good to me.

   Edited 8/4/2003 11:08:38 PM ET by CaseyR

3. 
   fredsmart48 | Aug 05, 2003 09:06am | #4

   Did you think of using rockwool.    Works good for sound deadening.  Comes in bats or can be spray on.   

4. 
   WayneL5 | Aug 05, 2003 05:55pm | #5

   I agree with the others that ordinary fiberglass and foam boards are not especially good at deadening sound.  Some of the other suggestions are good.

   Here are some more.  Homosote is not bad at blocking sound.  It would make a good ceiling material, expecially if left unpainted.  There are also those ugly acoustic ceiling tiles from the '70's which could be installed over it.

   If the windows are not particularly high quality, then shutters on them would help.  Solid, like plywood or Homosote, not louvered, of course.  The "shutter" could be a panel you place from inside.  Of course, this idea works better at night.

   If you have room around the equipment, you can buy sound deadening curtains that hang in a roll-around frame you can put around the machinery.  They are expensive, though.

1. 
   KARLSTER | Aug 05, 2003 11:13pm | #9

   Thanks to all the suggestions so far!

   Wayne, I think I have been referring to homasote as soundboard.  My latest plan is to shear the interior walls with 1/2 ply.  Then put homasote over that, screw on resilient channel and screw some sort of durable wall covering  to the channel that I will paint with a moisture resistant paint. 

   A fellow contractor pointed out that I need mass in the walls to deaden the sound and suggested a double layer of particle board would be a cheap finish surface with a lot of mass.  It won't hold up well to water but I will be painting the interior white so I assume a good semi gloss paint will improve the performance of the particle board in a wet environment.

   I plan to omit windows entirely and just rely on flourescent tubes.

   My other problem is how to make a soundproof door that is seven feet across.  I haven't given that one much thought but it seems a slider won't be very easy to soundproof so I am left with two 42" site built doors.

   Thanks for all the input.

   Karl

1. 
   WayneL5 | Aug 06, 2003 01:45am | #10

   Sounds like a good plan.  I think an insulated garage door might work as well as something you could build and save you a lot of time.  The smallest standard size is 8 foot wide.

   For example, Garaga offers metal doors with foam insulation as high as R18.  They don't mention soundproofing, but my R16 "Standard+" door from them seems like it would insulate sound fairly well.  It's a really good thermal insulator.  The tightness of the weatherstripping is important to sound deadening.

   http://www.garaga.ca

   Edited 8/5/2003 7:04:34 PM ET by WAYNEL5

5. 
   edwardh1 | Aug 05, 2003 06:15pm | #6

   plant dense bushes too

   try bamboo

1. 
   aimless | Aug 05, 2003 10:22pm | #7

   Bamboo? That's a good way to make his neighbor hate him even more, after it has taken over her yard as well.

1. 
   edwardh1 | Aug 05, 2003 10:53pm | #8

   plant the bunching kind will take 15 years

6. 
   COH | Aug 06, 2003 04:29am | #11

   In response to your sound deadening request you might want to look at the material provided by the Drywall Institute of America. They have already done the necessary research on sound deadening and have specification sheets for each of the installation methods. This includes sound reduction specs.