minimizing sound transmission from basement shop

[Aaron Wingert]

I have a basement shop. There's no economical way to do this. In the 7 years of having my shop, I've concluded the following:

1) Spend your money on insulating yr shop from escaping DUST - not noise. Get a good dc, a quiet air cleaner on a timer, and a good dust mask.
Done. The JDC air cleaner's on order and I'm in the market for a dust collector.

2) Do your loud operations during waking hours.
I wish! I have 10 week old twin sons.

3) Try to position your shop under the least used rooms in the house.
That is definitely being done. Couldn't be better. The bedrooms are at the opposite end of the house, and the majority of the shop is under the kitchen, laundry, office and family room. The family room gets NO use since we have a living room. The corner of the shop catches the living room, so I'm focusing my insulation efforts there and in the kitchen which is adjacent to the living rm.

4) Drop ceiling tiles - even the cheap ones, will do a lot for sound dampening.
Fingers crossed!

5) Many people put their dc's in a separate closet that's insulated. IMHO, the low frequency of the dc can be heard only as a low hum from the upstairs floors. It's not disturbing.
That's the plan for the DC. The loud air compressor will be left in the garage and I'm running type L copper hard-piped to the basement shop so I'll have air down there. It'll actually be a slick setup.

6) The loudest tools are my planer and router. You might be best served having these two small tools in yr garage. Both are compact enough to be stowed in yr garage, and can be rolled out into the d-way when in use...?
My planer's a screamer too. Honestly the bulk of my work is woodturning and table saw work. The lathe is very quiet fortunately.

Thanks Shawn.

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks Shawn.

No prob. Turn on your dc (when you get one) and run some wood thru yr tablesaw (the thin stuff screams the worst on me) and have your wife sit in the twins' room (congrats!) and see if you can hear anything. I bet it'll be negligible. I can run a loud pancake compressor in my basement without too much notice upstairs.

Even better, try this experiment when yr kids (and wife) are sleeping. If nobody wakes up, then all this is moot.

[James Artibee]

With the risk of sounding dumb, my old bosses son was into music(drums ,piano ,etc)and their music room was near their living room. Needless to say the noise was intense. To solve the problem they collected cardboard egg containers and lined the walls and ceilings . Something to do with the shape and material makes it work. I realise it wouldn't be pretty but, it did work. Hope this helps, I know it sounds crazy but it works. JIM

[Aaron Wingert]

James that's probably not all that far fetched. Something to do with the shape of the egg crates. A lot of recording studios and radio stations use commercial versions of egg crate foam stuff for wall covering.