Wood is a building material that absorbs sound.
It's common to consider the durability, cost and aesthetic appeal of building materials when building a new home, but builders and homeowners often neglect acoustics. A beautiful home can become a headache if sound carries through it too easily, or if every sound has an echo. You can control the acoustics of your new home to some extent by considering what materials to use during the design process.
Principles
Vibrations in the air and in materials carry sound through a room. When these vibrations hit a flat, hard surface, they rebound into the room, causing an echo. When sound waves hit a surface that is susceptible to vibration, the material in the wall transfers the sound into the next room rather than stopping or reflecting it. Thus, a solid concrete room will be prone to echoes while a room framed with wood and sheathed with drywall will not be soundproof. Providing an absorbent, roughly textured surface such as a wall full of books decreases both sound transfer and echoes.
Materials
Concrete is very effective at reducing sound transfer from one room to another, but will create echoes within a room if left in its natural state. Wood reduces both sound transfer and echoing, unless it is installed in large, flat walls with nothing breaking it up. You can make a hardwood floor more acoustically pleasing by placing a thick wool carpet in the middle to absorb ambient sound. Wool and other carpets, soft and upholstered furniture and textile wall hangings all contribute to an aurally pleasing environment.
Echoes
Most people have had the experience of walking through a brand new house with nothing in it and listening to the strange echoes. In a lived-in house, the shapes, materials and surfaces break up sound waves and create an environment in which vibrations can't bounce back and forth, which is why you don't hear echoes in your home. If you have large rooms that feature concrete walls, concrete floors and concrete ceiling surfaces and very few possessions, then you may notice echoes.
Soundproofing
Some types of wall insulation are made specifically for soundproofing. These acoustic batts are installed inside of framed walls in the same way as heat insulation, but are designed to dampen sound vibrations. You can further soundproof walls by sheathing them with plywood and screwing drywall over the plywood. This greatly reduces the vibrational characteristics of the drywall and eliminates sound passing from one room to another. For a truly soundproofed room, build a double row of studs with insulation in between them. Most sound that passes between rooms is carried through the wall studs.
Related posts
Plaster is an ideal material for ornamental motifs.Ceilings cover roof or floor frames and hide heating ducts, plumbing and other structures. In office buildings or auditoriums, special ceiling ma...
Interior soundproofing makes a house more livable.You may want to soundproof a room or a building for a number of different reasons, including not annoying your neighbors and not being annoyed by...
There are many ways and many materials used to soundproof rooms and choosing the right material greatly depends on the kind of room being soundproofed. Many confuse soundproofing and sound absorpt...
Scyscraper construction integrates many building materials within a framework of steel girders.Commercial buildings are designed and built to suit a variety of needs, from large applications such...
With appropriate sound insulation, you'll be able to hold worry-free jam sessions.Your garage or empty storage room may be a convenient place to hold band practice, but the neighbors can quickly t...
