minimizing sound transmission from basement shop

[Aaron Wingert]

I'm currently finishing off my basement to serve as my wood shop. The shop has always been in the garage, but the wife wants the parking and I'm wanting the shop space the basement can offer. I'll have approximately 30x24' down there.

My question has to do with sound transmission to the living space above. The part of the basement under the kitchen has too many wires, pipes and valves for me to be able to fur the ceiling down and drywall it. Headroom is already low and I'm really tall, plus future access is necessary. So a grid ceiling in that area is a must. The rest of the ceiling will get resilient channel and sheetrock, which is a best effort to minimize sound transmission given the minimal headroom and budget concerns.

Does anyone have a basement shop and a suspended tile/grid ceiling? How do they do at controlling the sound? I can insulate the joists but from what I know the benefits aren't that significant. Ideas?

[Anthony Smaldone]

Im in the middle of doing the same thing. In the shop area I doubled up 1/2 in. drywall with 1/4 in. foam foundation insulation in between the boards. Ill be installing the grid ceiling after im finnished painting the walls.
I installed R 30 unfaced insulation inbetween the jousts also...as of now my wife can hardly hear me cutting and planing down there. If you go with a grid ceiling i suggest you research the tile. There are tile that are 1" thick made for noise. Armstrong 325 1-A is 1 such tile.

[Aaron Wingert]

Well I priced resilient channel and I'm changing course I think. It is almost $4/stick, which drives the cost up a lot higher than I expected. I wouldn't consider rock without the resilient channel since the whole purpose is sound attenuation. I think I'll get better sound qualities with the grid ceiling compared to the rock on resilient channel, and the idea of not hanging rock on the ceiling is certainly appealing.

Back to the drawing board, and back to re-working the budget!

[Scott Pearson]

There are several drywall products that claim to cut sound transmission by large amounts.

I have never tried any of the products but have been sorely tempted too.

Check out these site:

http://www.quietsolution.com/html/quietrock.html
http://www.gypsumtoday.com/sound.shtml
http://www.supressproducts.com/products/

Plus there are lots of people with other options, just google and you will find tons of other ideas.

Scott

[Richard Andersen]

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=40849

Something I recently found on JLC regarding soundproofing rooms.

[Robert Maloney]

You could also try using Roxul mineral wool insulation. Not only is it great for sound, it also serves as a fire stop. A little more expensive but may be worth it

[Neil Brooks]

I'm working out the details for the same thing.

I know you said you don't want to block access to the mechanical and electrical, but ... I can't figure out a good way around it.

If you rock, but don't mud, tape, texture, or any of that other silly stuff, then ... a freshly charged battery for your screw gun will give you access to anything you'll likely need (what? Once a year ... if that?) ... in a jiffy.

That's how I'm looking at it, anyway...

[Jamie Buxton]

Well I priced resilient channel .... It is almost $4/stick...

That seems high if you're talking about RC-2 channel. It should be more like a buck and a half for a 12 foot stick.

[Prashun Patel]

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.

2) Do your loud operations during waking hours.

3) Try to position your shop under the least used rooms in the house.

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

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.

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...?

[Kent A Bathurst]

I'm going to take a slightly pragmatic, contrarian approach. My basement shop has open joists with fiberglass insulation stuffed between them (as-bought situation). Too much stuff (pipes, wiring, HVAC) to really do much very easily, like Aaron.

Are you sure it even matters? I'd put the stuff in the shop, fire it up, and see how big a deal it actually is. Noise comes from planer, jointer, TS, DC - but they aren't turned on for long periods of time. Net-net, most of the elapsed time is spent with the radio or iTunes as the loudest thing in the shop doing layout, finishing, plane + chisel work, etc.

The only time the shout has come down the stairs to quiet down is with the volume and bass turned way up on Little Feat - Waiting for Columbus - Fat Man in the Bathtub. I just told her "Lighten up - the song's almost over" and restarted it to make a point . Didn't turn out all that well in the end, but at least one of us was happy.

[Allen Prell]

I used natural cotton fiber insulation (UltraTouch) in my basement shop and it helped reduce sound transmission a lot. The cotton fiber stuff is way better than the fiberglass stuff for sound control because it's denser.

advantages over fiberglass:
better sound control
recycled product (uses recycled denim)
green building material
easy to handle -- does not itch


Cons:
more expensive
harder to find

[Wes Billups]

Aaron, I was in your position 3 years ago. My house had floor trusses which wouldn't have been efficient to use fiberglass for insulation. I also had multiple ducts and the main trunk running through the shop. I ended up having foam insulation sprayed to a depth of 2-3" between all the trusses as well as encapsulating the ducts. I then just screwed 1/2" OSB to the bottom of the trusses. I can run a router, planer, anything in the basement now and not bother anyone on the first floor.

Prior to this you could hear a conversation on the second floor due to the ductwork. Two other benefits of the spray foam is I don't have to worry about dust getting into the house HVAC system and my shop is extremely well insulated. If I could do it again I'd go the exact same route.

Let me know if you want any more details.

Wes

[Callan Campbell]

I also have a basement shop, low height, lots of piping due to hot water/radiator heat, and for my "problem zones", I cut up some appox. 1" rigid foam insulation board and screwed it directly to my plaster ceilings. It's the polyisocyanurate version, not the pink foam polystyrene type.
Yes plaster, the house is that old, very little drywall in it. This allows me to work the foam board close to any pipes coming through the ceiling, and it's really helped in areas like above my 2 stage air compressor. For any open joists where I had access, I ran fiberglass batts like others, but also understand that other insulation material is much better at sound deadening than fiberglass. We have blown-in rock wool in our 2nd floor ceiling/roof joist area. I wish the closed off ceiling areas of the basement had that as well. For the rest of the basement I'm looking at my options come Spring, would require blown-in for whatever I choose. Would blown-in cellulose as a DIY project work for you? I'm thinking along the lines of heavy plastic sheeting stapled to open joist bays to hold the loose fill cellulose inside the bays. Space some support strips every couple of feet to help hold up the weight, and this way you work around anything in your way and not lower the ceiling height with a dropped ceiling.

[Mark Blum]

I have a basement shop - same issues as others with pipes and such. Plus, my ceiling height is already so low (7 ft.) that the space between rafters is actually useful to me in maneuvering lumber.

I originally had plans to put in some insulation or something to cut down noise, but it turned out that noise wasn't such a big issue anyway. Extended planer or router use are the only times where it even becomes noticeable to my wife, and it's still muffled enough that she's not bothered by it.

The sound problem might not be as bad as you expect.

[Aaron Wingert]

Thanks for all the input guys. I'm a building codes inspector by trade, and am inimately familiar with fire assemblies and such, but sound assemblies aren't something I'm used to dealing with. Seems like most sound assemblies are intended to keep upstairs noises from getting to the floor below, but not from keeping basement noise in the basement!

Resilient channel was $3.60 per 12' stick (at Rew Materials, the major supplier of that sort of thing in the KC area), and I'd need 45 sticks. Add that to the cost of the 5/8" rock and the subsequent doctor visit for back pain caused by the labor of hanging it...And I've talked myself out of sheetrock ceilings. Plus I'm forced to use a grid ceiling in half of the shop anyway to facilitate access to electrical and plumbing under the kitchen.

Instead, I've opted to use a grid ceiling system made by USG throughout the shop. It'll cost me $359 to do the entire shop, which is really good sized. It'll allow me to use troffer lights, can lights, and will permit easy access to the entire above-ceiling space (a must in half of the space). After all, it is an acoustic tile grid ceiling, so it has some good acoustic properties.

I'm going to do some research on insulating some of the joist spaces above the shop...Especially under the living room. I'll be using batts of some sort for a couple reasons. Spray foam such as Icynene is just too expensive for my meager budget and it prohibits future access to a lot of the HVAC/plumbing/electrical in the joist spaces. Although it probably would have some sound attenuation benefit, foam board is just plain dangerous in my opinion...It is just too volatile, ignites easily, and lets out toxic fumes in a fire...So as much as I know it would work I won't use it since the code-required ignition barrier isn't practical in my application.

Going to look really hard at mineral wool batts for the joists.

In a month or two when this project is done I'll use my decibel meter to do a pre installation sound test (miter saw cutting a 2x4 for instance) upstairs, and then will do the same test after the insulation and grid are installed.