Noise affects your health. In extreme cases, it can affect not just your emotional wellbeing but your physical health too, with diabetes, and heart ailments being two conditions linked to living or working in a noisy environment. Soundproofing your home makes it a comfortable space to be, but just how do you do this? Find out here.
Soundproofing your home makes it a comfortable space to be, but just how do you do this? Find out here.
Is noise all that bad?
Yes, noise can be bad for you, your health and your overall well being. Noise and air pollution often go hand in hand. Whether you live on a busy suburban street – or right in the centre of a city, noise can and will affect you, but you might not notice until you soundproof your home.
Soundproofing is about keeping out as much noise as possible and, when there is noise in your home, using materials that absorb it rather than reflect it or, worse still, amplify it.
Soundproofing the walls, floors and ceiling
Depending on the structure of your property, not all of these will be possible. Using insulation layers in wall cavities, for example, can significantly reduce outside noise filtering in through the walls.
If you live in a modern flat or apartment, this material should already be in place to minimise the noise of neighbours living above and below you.
In older apartments, built before the current set of regulations came into force, you may need to add an insulating layer to the floor and ceiling.
Reducing noise in your home is done by including softer textures that stop noise being reflected:
- Flooring – hard flooring causes noise to echo so consider carpets or adding rugs to hard floor to help deaden the sound.
- Wallpaper – use wallpaper instead of paint as this too will help to lessen echoes.
Double glazed windows and doors
Single pane windows and a poorly fitting exterior door will allow noise to leak into your home. From footsteps, as people walk past your window to the roar of vehicles as they drive past, every sound will filter in.
Double glazed windows and doors are the solution, instantly reducing the level of outside noise penetrating your property.
But not all double glazed windows and doors are equal. For the best in soundproofing, you will need:
- Thick panes of glass – with two layers of glass and a vacuum in the middle, the thicker the glass then the better it will be at soundproofing the interior of a property.
- Interlayers – high-quality double glazed windows will have a thin laminated layer on the glass which is also effective at reducing noise penetration.
- Spacing – the bigger the void between one pane and another the better, but heavyset, thick windows are not always pleasing to the eye.
This is why the gap between one pane and the other will be filled with a dense, heavy gas such as argon or krypton. This also effectively stops noise pollution from penetrating your living space.
Just as you’ll find soundproofing much better with quality windows, you’ll need to be clear on the structure and composition of any double glazed exterior door you invest in. But once installed, your home will be far quieter and a much more pleasant place to live.