Whether it’s because of a noisy neighbor, slamming doors, or Mateo, the neighbor’s youngest child who cries, knowing how to insulate a wall from noise without work and quickly can be more than necessary.

In this article, I will give tips and suggestions to insulate your walls from noise: do it yourself, without work, for cheap or free.

Why insulate a wall from noise?

You should know that sound travels in 2 different ways:

• Through the air, holes in a room like outlets, switches, lights, gaps, HVAC ducts, etc.
• Or through structures, i.e., it vibrates through walls, ceilings, floors, ducts, etc.

 

Respect your neighbors

If you live in an apartment, it’s unlikely to bother anyone if your newborn cries at night and screams at the stars because he’s hungry or has an itchy diaper. The comfort of your neighbors (and preventing potential arguments and confrontations) is one of the main reasons people are willing to invest a little in insulating their homes.

Preserve your privacy

Just as you don’t want the neighbors to hear your child’s late-night or early-morning tantrums, you don’t want them to listen to what’s happening in your home. If you’re into sex or listening to Celine Dion at full volume, it stands to reason that everyone will know about your most hidden and denied passions if your walls aren’t well insulated. Installing soundproofing panels can help prevent this from happening and keep you from being the talk of the neighborhood.

Keep outside noise out.

Outside noises can’t be controlled unless you’re the president or mayor of your city, which I’m guessing you aren’t if you’re reading this. All the construction going on downstairs or that group of kids listening to Juls or Daddy Yankee loudly on Thursday nights are also outside noises that can get on your nerves.

You can keep the noise from getting inside by insulating your apartment, duplex, or house. If you also live in a noisy area, such as near a shopping mall or highway, soundproofing your walls can help. No one should live too close to major noise sources for too long.

Now that you are convinced of the importance of soundproofing your walls, it’s time to get down to business.

 

How to insulate a wall from noise without any work?

1. Identify the weak points in your walls

If you want to save time and money on insulating your wall from noise, it is essential to first identify the weak points in your walls, i.e., where noise could leak most easily. And the weak points of each of your walls are the windows and the doors.

First, windows are often thin and let all the outside noise into the room. Car horns, people screaming, dogs barking, etc.

Second, donors probably don’t cancel out all the noise in the hallway. You may be able to hear what your neighbors are talking about in the hallway at times. Unless, of course, they are whispering, which is very unlikely. If you’re not interested in listening to the neighbor gossip about the married couple on the third floor, you should do something about your front door.

However, the front door isn’t the only door you’ll need to insulate. If you have children, remember that they also make a lot of noise inside your apartment. If you want to relax after work with a glass of wine in one hand and a good book in the other, you’ll need some quiet. Let’s face it: you can close all the doors in the apartment, but you’ll probably still hear them jumping and screaming in the other room.

Let’s start with some simple and inexpensive ways to reduce noise in these areas.

Doors

First of all, many doors are mostly hollow and worn. Let’s also not forget that the gaps between the door and the door frame allow noise to penetrate the interior easily. But since we’re looking for inexpensive ways to block noise, we’re not going to ask an expert to install thick soundproof doors. It is possible to slightly reduce the amount of noise that enters your apartment by placing things like shelves, shoe cabinets, and cupboards in front of the edges of your doors.

Another effective way to block noise is to place thick, soundproof blankets over your doors. I know hanging blankets over a door isn’t aesthetically pleasing, but hear me out. If you put thick blankets over your door, you will get almost the same effect as a soundproof door. You can choose a nice pattern that will match the color of your walls. Plus, in the winter, these blankets will keep the heat in your apartment. To learn more, read the article on soundproofing a door. A blanket may seem complicated to install, so you might as well buy a soundproof curtain and install it in front of your door.

Windows

For windows, soundproof curtains will also do the trick. Just be sure to buy heavy, tightly woven curtains with as many layers as possible. Also, don’t forget to cover a few inches of the walls on both window sides for best results. You can get more information on insulating a window from the noise here.

2. Rearrange the furniture

If you have a relatively empty room with very little furniture, try to reduce the echo in the room by filling it with new furniture. The emptier the room, the greater the echo. Closets and shelves are huge and cover a lot of space, so they are good insulators. It’s still optimization, but it can be very interesting if you can afford to add furniture.

Add shelves, cabinets, etc. Place them on problem walls (the walls that separate your apartment from the hallway, the walls that separate you from the street, the walls that separate you from the neighbors).

Also, if you have placed your chairs or sofas against a noisy wall, move them away. If the couch is close to the wall where the noise is coming from, it’s time to move it away.

These little tricks won’t necessarily bring amazing results but put them together, and chances are you’ll still feel a little difference.

 

3. Redecorate your walls

Another way to insulate your wall from noise economically is to take the opportunity to redecorate your walls. The logic is simple, any item you can attach to your walls that will give them more mass will be useful.

Of course, you can’t expect decorating the walls to make much of a difference in noise reduction, but if you’ve planned to do it before, this is the perfect opportunity.

You can buy pictures or pretty paintings on fabric or large art canvases. Thick wallpaper or soundproofing paint is also a good choice if you don’t want to hang anything on your walls.

4. Installing acoustic foam

Have you considered acoustic foam panels? At first glance, they may seem expensive and difficult to install, but trust me, they’re not.

They will serve to prevent the source of the noise from spreading if you want your neighbor to hear less of what you’re doing, that’s fine. However, if he is making too much noise, suggest that he install some in his home.

Acoustic foam panels can be installed in minutes, and there are many different colors and patterns to choose from. For example, this foam will do very well.

The proper placement of the panels depends on the location of the sound reflection points. You can find this out by testing and experimenting. This is why it is best to use Velcro or other non-permanent adhesives. For more information, check out the article on the best acoustic foams.

5. Installing acoustic panels

Not everyone wants their living room to look like a music studio with all those weird foam shapes to hang on the walls, which I can understand.

The solution, in this case, is to use acoustic panels. They cost a little more but are worth it. They consist of a solid wood frame and a fabric that wraps around it – a composition that gives these panels excellent sound-absorbing properties and a complete design.

6. Talk to your neighbors

If you have a noisy neighbor who keeps you up at night, you should first talk to him. Be polite and ask if they wouldn’t mind doing their business in another room.

The best way to approach a noisy neighbor is to be excellent – the last thing you want to do is get angry. If this approach fails, talk to your landlord and, as a last resort, file a formal noise complaint with your municipality. Otherwise, check out this guide to getting back at your noisy neighbors (ironic).

7. Don’t dream too much

Unfortunately for you, soundproofing your walls is far from the easiest thing to do.

The walls must be mass-loaded and insulated from each other to achieve genuinely effective room-to-room insulation. Unfortunately, stud walls typically have poor thermal insulation, which leads to a lot of noise transmission between the walls.

So you can imagine that to solve your noise problems, you’ll have to go through some work.

Conclusion

Thin walls can be a disaster daily; not everyone can call a professional or even move.

There are no quick fixes when it comes to soundproofing, and if you think you’ll be completely satisfied without any work or without calling a professional, you’re wrong.

I hope this article has given you some practical and inexpensive ways to reduce the noise in your home (if it’s critical, you can always use earplugs, etc.).