Peace and Quiet: Soundproofing made simple

Your home might have gorgeous floors, spectacular trim, the world's finest solid wood cabinets, radiant in-floor heating and terrific natural light, but if you can also hear everything that's going on in the bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms while you read in the den, then your place is definitely second rate.

Sound-resistant walls and floors are for more than just recording studios and factories. Successful homes require them, too. And while everyone might agree with this in principle, far too many new homes and renovations are being built in acoustically flimsy ways. That's because soundproofing is shrouded in so much unnecessary mystery. To deal with noise issues properly in walls, all you really need to do is apply three basic building strategies during the earliest stages of construction. It's neither difficult nor expensive and the pay-off is huge.

Silent Walls Step-By-Step
Step#1 in your pursuit of silent walls is the use of staggered stud framing. By placing alternating 2x4 studs on 2x6 top and bottom plates you effectively eliminate most of the physical connection between inner and outer wall surfaces. With studs spaced 16 inches on centre on each side of the wall, the results do look over-built, but that's okay. What you get for the extra wood is an excellent foundation for the highly sound resistant wall strategies that come next.

Step#2 is all about sealing. Sound is sneaky, able to worm its way through the smallest gaps and cracks. That's why they invented something called 'acoustic caulking'. It's thick, sticky and never hardens. Lay down beads of the stuff all around the edges of staggered-stud partition walls as you tilt them up into place. Also use it underneath the edges of drywall or other sheet coverings as you install them.

Step#3 in the simple, soundproofing recipe is all about fiberboard. And while you can buy expensive, specialty acoustic sheet materials for this job, good old exterior fiberboard sheathing works very well. The combination of hard, dense drywall and softer fiberboard underneath deadens sound transmission because it creates very different, side-by-side densities. Sound engineers have discovered that this kind of physical diversity is a potent noise blocker. You'll need longer-than-normal drywall screws to secure such a combination to your staggered wall studs, but if you can't find any, don't worry. Regular, flathead wood screws work just fine for securing drywall, and they're easy to find in longer lengths. Simply mud right over top of them as usual.

Building sound resistance into your home is the cheapest way to make it seem bigger. Effective soundproofing strategies boost the privacy quotient of separate spaces, making each room seem farther apart and more private. Not a bad price to pay for a little bit of planning, a few extra hours of work, and a bit more money spent up front.

Sidebar: Quiet as Lead
As metals go, lead isn't going to win any popularity contests these days. But this doesn't mean it's all bad. In fact, when it comes to soundproofing, lead is actually your friend. Here's how.

When Dr. Renny Whip designed and built a dental office to house his new practice back in 1981, his plan required thin sheets of lead underlay behind specific finished wall surfaces. The main purpose of the metal was to act as an X-ray shield, but a valuable side benefit came as part of the approach: spectacularly effective noise control.

"Right behind the wall where our receptionist sat there was a loud, thumping air compressor," explains Whipp. "but even when it was running, there was absolute silence at the front desk. Lead shielding did the trick."

Sheet lead is a spectacularly effective soundproofing material, and it's easy to use. Acoustic-grade versions come in rolls 4-feet wide and 25-feet long. Unfurl the metal, staple it to a sheathed wall, then add drywall or other finished wall treatments on top. That's it. Used in this encapsulated way lead is perfectly safe. Simply wear disposable gloves during installation, cut the material with hand tools only, then return all lead scraps to a metal recycling depot. These safety precautions are similar to what you'd follow working with old-style solder.

Lead isn't cheap (about $300 to $350 per roll depending on market prices), but it sure does work. A 2-inch-thick, steel-stud wall sheathed in 1/64-inch-thick acoustic lead stops sound more effectively than a 6-inch-thick solid concrete wall.

You won't find thin lead sheeting at your average building centre, but it's worth the trouble of tracking down a supplier. One source that offers nation-wide, acoustic-grade lead is Canada Metal (www.canadametal.com; 403-252-7646).

Sidebar: Sound-Resistant Ceilings
One of the best ways to improve the acoustic performance of ceilings costs almost nothing. And it all comes down to a simple sheet metal product called resilient channel. Just screw these trough-shaped strips to the underside of ceiling joists, then install drywall with screws driven up into the resilient channel itself. Just make sure the screws don't also hit wood. You need to avoid this kind of direct physical connection between drywall and ceiling framing for the system to work properly.