Who amongst us hasn't laid in bed at night listening to our neighbors having a row or a television blaring out from the house next door? The answer to these problems is acoustic insulation. The best time to install acoustic insulation is when your home is in it's initial build phase. It can be added between the layers that make up your wall and thus deaden the sound coming through from the other side of the wall. Unfortunately, only a small minority of us are involved in the initial building of our homes and so we end up having to install acoustic insulation long after the building contractor has packed up and left.
For those of us fortunate to have rooms that are larger than we require the answer is simple. Add a false skin to each wall in your home with a layer of acoustic insulation behind it and this will greatly reduce the noise interference from external sources. Most of us don't have the luxury of being able to lose three or four inches from the internal dimensions of our rooms so we have to look for another way of improving our acoustic insulation. The simplest way is to increase the thickness of your wall and floor coverings. A thick carpet with some high quality underlay will dramatically reduce the noise you are getting from below whilst a specially purchased wall covering with impregnated acoustic insulation material will drastically reduce noise you can hear from the next room.
Sometimes acoustic insulation has been considered during the initial building phase but the installed product is not the best that is available and it can be upgraded. A good example of this is the glass used in double glazed windows. The standard glass panels that are installed do give good thermal acoustic insulation but even that can be improved by installing panels made from special glass with enhanced acoustic insulation properties. This will help to reduce noise coming into your home from the road outside.
Some older buildings are metal framed with single skin walls and these can be especially noisy as they provide very little acoustic insulation. If they are used as schools or factories it can be extremely distracting to the children or employees who are trying to work. A simple solution to this problem is spray on acoustic insulation. This is simply sprayed onto the inner skin of the building and, when dry, a special coating is applied to prevent the ingress of water. This coating can be coloured and the insulation then needs no more attention thus enabling the building's inhabitants to continue wotk without the constant interruptions caused by noise external to the building.
Whichever method you decide to use to improve the acoustic insulation properties of your home, school, office or factory you can be sure that the reduction of external disturbance factors will greatly increase productivity at work and aid relaxation at home, helping to keep your workforce and family happy, healthy and rested.
Acoustic insulation is best installed when your home is in it's initial build phase