Sound Proof Tiles

Sound Proof Tiles

Sound Proof Tiles

I am building a house from the gound up, how should I build the sound room?

Building a house from scratch! The wife is letting me make a sound room if it's not super expensive. So I want to focus on the walls, floor and ceiling for sound proofing. I'll deal with the acoustics inside later. But I know a square room or something like 8X16x8 is bad and stuff. Also worried about suffocation. Should i use the rigid fiberglass? which i think is hard to get. Or double wall? or a room within a room? The double door? Slanted walls? Double ceiling? (making a 2 story house in Japan). Acoustic Ceiling tiles? (don't want to put the money in for diffusers gaskets yet). Need help from experience carpenters please! thnx

I would go the room in room route.

We have built outside broadcast units, Home studios, and secure units in sensitive work areas.
Do a door back to back with second door. The rest of the room can be stud ~only need 50mm x 50mm for costs. line the inside of the outside skin with perforated steel mesh and make sure they are wired together (use electric copper wire if necessary) and run to an electrical EARTH. then line with either double 12.5mm standard plasterboard or single 15mm acoustic board. Use a high density foam on the floor after cutting and fixing wood blocks where your joists/walls will run. apply strips of min. 3mm rubber to tops of each block to take out truck/train rumbles. Old car tyres also work well for this (need jigsaw to cut) build your studs as frames so not to fix too much (each fix is a vibration point) and line inside of inside wall with plasterboard.Walls can finish short of ceiling but may need stability fro wire or rubber packers where you have to~ideally less contact the better.The cavity behind has been successfully and cheaply filled with car door and foot-well insulation (go to scrapyard and source from QUALITY brands) - fill carefully cutting with stanley knife and holding in place in your panels with twine pinned between screws. Gaffer tape together where you must but remembering that gaffer may not last as long.

Ceiling is a lightweight frame as before with stretched out chicken wire below and insulation on top. this should be measured carefully to hang just clear of your walls inside the frame. and suspended on wire from building ceiling. make sure there is a good overlap _ie that your walls go higher than the ceiling.

Always good to plan your wiring before starting and allow for future adoptions. Plumbing/electrical conduit is a good idea under the floor (plumb gear is bigger and bends are smooth for getting whole jacks through in the future!) remember to leave a thin rope/cord in each route and when you use it in the future pull through TWO cables so you can pull your cord back to its original position each time.

Best wishes

Dave

An Explanation of Carpet Tile Usage Symbols

The array of symbols that accompanies most carpet tiles is intended to help the buyer make an informed choice. It's a well-intentioned aim, but unless they're fully understood they can mislead rather than guide. Is a tile fire-resistant? The presence of a fire-resistance symbol would suggest so, but in fact it simply shows that the carpet tile has been tested it's the text below the symbol that actually tells you how it would behave in a fire.
In this article I'll try to clarify the most important symbols, and so help a buyer to choose wisely. There's also more information on the tests themselves in my article on .

Wear Resistance
For carpet tiles for commercial premises, this is where the story usually starts. Tiles in these areas are subject to far harder service than those in the home. Castor chairs, coffee spills, copier toner and indifferently wiped feet all take a huge toll. For this reason you should be looking for contract or, ideally, heavy contract tiles. The symbol for project-suitable tiles shows a stylised office block on the left, with a varying number of human figures on the right the more figures, the tougher the carpet. Put simply, if you see a house on the left, it won't do the job - however many figures you see on the right.

Castor Chairs
Castor chairs are a fact of office life. But they dig their way through floor coverings faster than Charles Bronson leaving Stalag Luft III (though admittedly they rarely dispose of the debris on the football field no simile is perfect). There's a standard castor test to classify a carpet tile's resistance to this sort of wear, the symbol for which is, unsurprisingly, a castor.
But domestic tiles can be tested for castor resistance and be passed as suitable for occasional use. Confusingly, the commercial symbol doesn't carry an office image, so the absence of a house symbol is the visual check to make sure you're not misled.

It's worth noting here that polypropylene carpet tiles can pass the castor chair test in terms of wear-through, but may still be unsatisfactory in use. This is because polypropylene pile tends to flatten permanently under compression, giving a whitish effect in heavy wear areas. Nylon pile tends to be more resistant to this flattening.

Fire Resistance
Health and safety requirements put this factor right at the top of the list, alongside wear resistance. This is a tricky, specialised area, needing an understanding of the various ISO specifications. Essentially though it's important to understand that the presence of a fire resistance symbol isn't a guarantee of non-combustibility.
Making it all as simple as possible, the fire classification falls into groups from A to F, with A being the most fire-resistant. In fact the highest rating achievable by a carpet tile is "B".

The main classifications are subdivided A1, A2 etc, and there's also an "s"suffix to identify a product's smoke emission properties:

For the sake of completeness I'll also mention the cigarette-resistant symbol. Now that smoking is prohibited in public areas, this is far less important than used to be the case, and is rarely seen.

Fire resistance is a complex subject and so has to be an area for expert advice, particularly in escape routes.
Electrical Behaviour
Those tiny electric shocks when you touch the radiator or the photocopier might not be dangerous, but they're pretty damned irritating. And leaping in the air, flapping your hand and screaming obscenities almost never enhances your presentation of this year's sales forecasts.
But while the staff spill coffee and endure the non-sympathy of their co-workers, computers quietly eat all your data and expire to their silicon afterlife. Static electricity isn't welcome in the office.
For most applications all you need to look for is the anti-static symbol. This tells you that the carpet tile has permanent anti-static characteristics, so you shouldn't feel electric shocks. This level of protection meets IBM's and ICL's standards, so it's quite adequate for most offices.

Where particularly delicate electronic equipment is in use, a more conductive carpet tile is required. Static electricity builds up because the charge created by friction can't earth itself through the carpet. By making a carpet tile more conductive it's possible to discharge this build-up. At first glance, the following two symbols are identical:

The Devil's in the detail here - 109 or 106 Ohms. In the former case, the tile dissipates the static build-up, while in the latter it actually conducts it through to the floor below.
Sound Absorption
Open plan offices can be very noisy places. This can make using the phone, conversing or just concentrating a real challenge. We can reduce the noise burden with acoustic screens, but choosing a sound-deadening carpet tile will help tackle the problem, literally, at base.
There are two types of acoustical symbol: one that guides you on how much ambient noise is absorbed by the tile, and one that shows how much noise is passed through to the floor below. In modern offices with concrete floors the latter of these is rarely a major problem. It's only in older buildings with wooden floors you usually need to worry too much about noise transmission.

The symbol above tells you that the floor covering has good sound absorption characteristics, making it suitable for open-plan offices.

This symbol indicates that the carpet tile provides good sound insulation through the floor.

Comfort Class

This measurement is less relevant to commercial carpet tiles than to domestic. It's based on pile weight, and gives an idea of the "luxury level" of the carpet. Very heavy pile isn't usually desirable in offices, shops or other such premises as it can be prone to flattening. But too thin a pile gives a cheap, unyielding impression. In general, carpet tiles are designed with medium pile weight in order to give a good balance of wear and luxury. three to four "tufts" on the symbol indicate an excellent quality tile.

Laying Instructions
In addition to wear and suitability indicators, some carpet tiles also carry laying guidance. Most commonly, tiles are laid at right-angles to one another, giving a pleasing chequerboard effect. This has the benefit of disguising any variation in colour between tiles. Some tiles , usually more expensive, can also be laid parallel. This is often called "broadloom laying" as it hides the joins between tiles, giving a luxurious broadloom effect. It's thus possible to achieve a wall-to-wall carpet effect without losing the benefits of flexibility and hard wear associated with carpet tiles.

This doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive explanation of carpet symbols; there are many, many more. What should be clear is that the symbols give you only a broad guide to a carpet tile's suitability. I'd recommend using them to make a preliminary selection, and then talk to a trustworthy, knowledgeable supplier to make sure you make the right ultimate choice.

Acoustic Foam 1-1/2" 24" x 18" UL 94
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Description

Specially designed, opened cell, flame retardant foam in a convoluted "egg crate" pattern. Helps to reduce muddy bass and cleans up the midrange by absorbing internal standing waves. Staple or glue to the top, bottom, sides and back of your speaker cabinet. You will be amazed at what acoustic foam can do for your sound system. Also ideal for small recording rooms and studios. Flame retardant in accordance with UL 94 HF-1 flammability testing. Sold individually in 24" x 18" pieces. 16 pieces per carton. Charcoal gray color. Note: This item is shipped in its own separate carton, due to it's size and/or shape and requires additional handling charges NOT included in your online shipping estimate.

Features

Specially designed, opened cell, flame retardant foam in a convoluted "egg crate" pattern. Helps to reduce muddy bass
Staple or glue to the top, bottom, sides and back of your speaker cabinet