The Best Cheap Soundproofing Tricks For Your Home 

The Best Cheap Soundproofing Tricks For Your Home 

Beyond the comfort that it provides, your home can be a hideout for you – an opportunity for you to escape the madness and bustle of the outside world and enjoy some peace. If you live in the city, then you understand how bad noise pollution can be.

For most people, noise lives everywhere, both inside and outside the home. You just can’t seem to get away from all of it. However, when you notice that the noise has finally become too much for you to handle, soundproofing becomes the best way for you to deal with it.

Let’s take a look at some cheap soundproofing solutions.

The Critical Nature of Soundproofing

Soundproofing has become more than just a solution that helps musicians keep their noise to minimal levels when they jam at night. Now, it has graduated to something that many people can’t live without at home. Soundproofing ensures that you don’t get disturbed by uncontrollable external factors when you’re sleeping.

The Best Cheap Soundproofing Tricks For Your Home 

Today, soundproofing is available for just about every part of the house, including walls, ceilings, windows, and even doors. Some of the benefits that soundproofing provides include:

  1. Creating a more ideal environment for you at home
  2. Privacy for you and your loved ones
  3. A great way to incorporate a recording studio in the home
  4. Saving you money
  5. Providing a great place for you to work
  6. Improving the value of your property

Cheap Soundproofing Materials to Consider

Since one of the most important soundproofing factors is cost, we’ll look into some of the best and cheapest soundproof materials that you can use to get some proper soundproofing done:

Green Glue

For many people, green glue is the go-to option when soundproofing. It helps in soundproofing walls, ceilings, and floors, and it’s usually applied between layers of drywall, so its ability to absorb sound really shines.

Green glue is so affordable, you can find it just about anywhere. This makes it a great cheap soundproofing material. Beyond its efficiency and affordability, green glue is also non-hazardous and great for the environment.

Another way to use this material is to get a green glue soundproofing compound along with a green glue sealant. The sealant will help to close up gaps and cracks in your soundproofing surfaces.

This is an excellent feature of green glue because you won’t have to adapt to its look. Green glue sealant is paintable, so you can easily gloss over it with paint and make any gaps invisible.

In two days, the green glue sealant will dry. It doesn’t have a bad smell, either, so no one has to know a thing about it.

Lastly, you can get green glue joist tape – a foam-based compound that provides cheap soundproofing for your floors. This tape prevents beeping, creaking, and other types of airborne noise that tend to get through the joists and your floors.

Green glue is easy and simple to apply, and you don’t need to take any precautions when applying it. Just make sure it covers the surface in question, and you’re good to go.

Mass-Loaded Vinyl

If you have airborne noises coming from your walls and ceiling, then you want to give mass-loaded vinyl a chance. This material provides cheap soundproofing to the surfaces in question, and it works quite effectively, too.

Mass-loaded vinyl is made of a dense material that easily absorbs sounds. Most times, it’s made with a combination of vinyl and barium sulfate, a non-toxic, high-density material. Mass-loaded vinyl also becomes more effective as its density increases.

Like green glue, mass-loaded vinyl is pretty easy to install. You get impressive versatility here, with the material working with many different types of houses. Lastly, its initial smell is bearable and dissipates quickly.

Floor Underlayment

As its name suggests, floor underlayments are a cheap soundproofing option for your floor. Most of these underlayments are adhesive strips that absorb sound and prevent the passage of noise.

If you live in a multi-story building and have a lot of airborne noise coming from the neighbors downstairs, floor underlayments are a great option for you.

Metal Resilient Channels

They might not be so popular, but metal resilient channels are a great cheap soundproofing option. The problem with them, however, is that they’re usually applied during the construction process. In the absence of soundproof walls, metal resilient channels can do a lot.

Metal resilient channels are used to hang the drywall. They’re alternatives to hanging drywall on studs instead. The channels will essentially improve the strength of the extra drywall, ensuring that unwanted noises find it much harder to pass through.

You can find different types of metal resilient channels online, so you don’t have to stress over options. The only problem is that the work taken to install these channels is quite extensive. So, while the channels are a cheap soundproofing option, you’ll need to pay some money for labor.

Anti-Vibration Pads

Anti-vibration pads are another awesome product for you if you’re looking into alternatives for soundproof walls. They’re especially great because they don’t just deal with sound. They also prevent you from feeling any vibrations whatsoever.

If you live at or close to an active construction site, you’ll unfortunately need more than just soundproofing. You also want something that can help you to clear out any vibrations that disturb you as a result of the machines whirring.

You can stack anti-vibration pads on top of each other if you want to clear out heavier vibration weights. Wherever you have a problem, use these pads and see how well they work for you.

Ceiling Sound Baffles

These are hanging baffles that are made of hardened acoustic fiberglass. They look very much like boards, and they hang from the ceiling when they’re applied. Baffles are great when it comes to absorbing sounds, and you should definitely consider them when you’re trying to soundproof your home.

Besides homes, ceiling sound baffles also work pretty well when used in industrial settings. However, you want to remember that there are different types of ceiling sound baffles. You should consider the thickness of an option before you choose it.

Ceiling sound baffles are also great as aesthetic pieces. They come in different colors and variants, so you can choose one that works best for your room or house. With a combination of affordability, aesthetic appeal, and efficiency, there’s nothing to lose with these.

The Best Cheap Soundproofing Tricks For Your Home 

Sound Isolation Foam

Sound isolation foam provides one of the easiest ways to soundproof a room. They’re essentially soundproof insulation materials, and they work the same way that regular insulation works. As you can expect, their objective is to control the noise levels that you experience in your house.

In general, fiberglass foam provides one of the best ways for you to block out all forms of noise. There are many options and variants available, so feel free to pick one that suits your needs.

Soundproof Paint

As the name suggests, soundproof paint is a paint variant that helps with reducing ambient noise. It’s thicker than regular paint, and it’s usually made with a combination of ceramic microspheres and sound-absorbing fillers.

The fillers in this paint variant provide small vacuum-filled cells and a tiny pigment that blocks sound waves. If any waves are strong enough to hit it, they’re absorbed. This operation will reduce the amount of noise that enters your room.

Note that soundproof paint won’t clear all the noise. So, it only works primarily for homes with low ambient noise levels.

Soundproof Panels

Soundproof panels are made with sound absorption materials that cut down on the noise coming into your room. They come in different variants, including wrapped panels, perforated wood, and water-resistant acoustic foam panels.

These panels work best when it comes to soundproofing walls and ceilings. They’re especially beneficial because they’re durable and can stand the test of time. Soundproof panels are also flexible, making them a great choice for homes, industrial settings, and even cars.

Cheap Soundproofing Methods You Can Try

If you don’t want to buy any of the soundproofing materials we’ve listed above, some other cheap soundproofing methods could help you out. Some of them include:

Rugs

Rugs are especially great for reducing the vibrations around your house. They’re also great if you live in a multi-story building and you have noisy neighbors living downstairs. All you have to do is place a soundproof rug over the area that you hear the sound coming from.

To be clear, a rug won’t block all of the noise. It will only take care of mild noise, and in the case of harsh noise, it will simply take the edge off. Rugs are also not so effective if you’re disturbed by vibrations and if the sound is airborne.

Weatherstripping

If the sound bothering you is coming from the windows or the door, then weatherstripping is an effective and cheap soundproofing solution that you should consider.

Essentially, weatherstripping is a method that helps to prevent moisture from getting in through external windows and doors. A side benefit of that is the method’s ability to prevent sound entrance as well.

In weatherstripping, you glue a slim rubber tube around the inside of a window or door frame at the point where the window or door actually meets the frame. Weatherstripping provides an airtight, watertight, and sound-tight seal.

In general, weatherstripping is a great way to get gaps in your doors and windows sealed. It’s also a cheap soundproofing method, and you won’t have any stress installing it.

Blankets

If you have a bit of an emergency, soundproof blankets could come in handy. Everyone has blankets, and you could use them to help you soundproof just about any part of your home.

To use blankets, you’ll first need to know where the noise is coming from. Then, all you have to do is muffle that part with the blanket. You can hang a blanket over the door or stuff blankets in its frame to cover any gaps that allow noise to come in. The same thing applies to windows.

If the sound is coming through your walls, try hanging a thick blanket over them. Beyond blocking some noise, the blanket will also help to prevent noise vibrations from reverberating.

Curtains

Soundproofing experts continue to argue whether soundproof curtains are effective or not.

Regardless of the prevalent opinion, you can use curtains to help muffle out noise transmission throughout your home. All you have to do is install some thick curtains, and they’ll help to dampen out vibrations and sound energy that comes into your home. As the sound waves try to get through the curtains, they wane.

The benefit of soundproof curtains is that they are another cheap soundproofing option for you to consider. Just get strong curtain rails and put the curtains on, and you’re good to go.

Egg Cartons

Egg cartons are a bit of a myth among soundproofing experts. Some believe that they can be used to soundproof a room, but this isn’t true. Their thin structures make them incapable of dampening the entry of sound. However, egg boxes actually help to reduce the passage of echo in a room.

Thanks to their unique shape and uneven surfaces, egg boxes can work against echos. When a sound wave hits an egg box, it’s reflected in various directions. With enough egg boxes, you can reduce impact noise as well, but not as well as with other methods..

DIY Soundproof Panels

Beyond the complex instruments you see, soundproof panels are simple dense pieces of material that are attached to your surface to make it more difficult for sound to travel through. You can get soundproof panels for cheap, but you can use different materials to make makeshift ones at home as well.

All you have to do is bolt a soundproof panel to your wall and ensure that the wall is properly covered. It’s recommended that you start by measuring the wall and getting enough panels to cover its surface.

Window Blockers

There’s not much complexity to window blockers. They’re building materials that block your windows.

In this case, we’re not considering a window blind or a set of curtains – although you can get soundproof blinds and curtains to block sounds from time to time. Instead, a window blocker is a large panel that perfectly fits the size and shape of your window frame. This way, it blocks everything coming through the window – sound, light, etc.

Window blockers work best if you have a small bedroom or an attic with a small window. Anything can be used as a window blocker, as long as it muffles out the impact noise and dampens everything coming in.

If your window is bigger, then you should be able to make a custom window blocker at a low cost. Just get a frame that fits your window, mount it on a hardwood board, and seal a soundproof mat to it with an acoustic sealant.

This setup works well in absorbing all sound vibrations. You can also get some soundproof film to reduce how sound travels freely in your room by blocking the windows as well.

Furniture Placements

You can also place your furniture in strategic areas to reduce impact noise. This way, they will be able to break the passage of sound waves and dissipate the sound energy quickly – much more than it would be if you allowed sound waves to freely enter the room.

For instance, you can put shoe racks and cabinets close to the door to break the sound waves that travel through door frame cracks. You can also place sofas close to the window to do the same thing.

If you have a weak wall, put upholstered furniture against it so that the sound can be absorbed and sound vibrations can be minimized. Effective noise reduction doesn’t have to be so challenging.

Final Thoughts

If you’re not planning on recording for the Academy Awards, you probably don’t need to spend a fortune soundproofing your home. As you’ve seen, there are many DIY and inexpensive items you can buy and regular household items you can convert to keep noise out of your home.

With some smart thinking and the information in this article, you can have your home soundproofed in no time. Try out some of these cheap soundproofing solutions, and let us know what you think!