Have band practice but don’t want to upset your neighbors? Tired of relaxing in your garage only to hear your neighbors banging pots and pans?
Having to deal with unwanted noise sucks, especially in an open place like the garage. With a few tips and tricks, your garage will be noise-free.
Below you’ll learn everything you need to know about soundproofing a garage.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Soundproof and Insulating the Garage Door
The best type of insulation for sound reduction is fiberglass and foam insulation. You won’t just be reducing the noise level in your garage with insulation, you’ll be keeping the air in. It’ll allow you to efficiently heat or cool your garage as well if you insulate your garage.
Garage doors let in most of the noise so that’s where it’s best to start. Check out the best garage door insulation kit and find the right size for your garage.
The tools you’ll need to install the kit are a knife, double-sided tape, and measuring tape. Measure the subsection of your garage door and cut each panel to your measurements. Make sure to account for the metal that will hold the panels in, you’ll have to cut the width by a few inches for it to fit.
If you haven’t already sealed your garage from the inside, you’re going to want to seal the gaps that your garage door creates.
2. Soundproof the Walls
Acoustic Foam Panels
While acoustic foam panels don’t block noise entirely, they do well at reducing high and mid-frequency sound waves. You’ll get one step closer to soundproofing your garage walls and enhance the overall aesthetic as well.
Acoustic panels are easy to install. You can screw in the included brackets right onto your drywall, stud, or spray an adhesive on the back.
Mass-Loaded Vinyl
Another way to soundproof your walls is by installing mass-loaded vinyl. Mass-loaded vinyl is a flexible material that you can hang on your walls to deaden and absorb sound.
You can go as far as adding it in between layers of drywall when you insulate your garage. It’s not 100% necessary but it will get you that much closer to soundproofing your garage.
Acoustical Caulk
If you’re obsessive like me, you’ll utilize green glue acoustical caulk.
Find all of the obvious places that sound is leaking from like cracks in the walls or around the floorboard. You can go as far as removing the cover of your electrical outlets and sealing the space too. That’ll keep outside noise where it belongs, outside!
3. Soundproof the Ceiling
Insulation
Insulating your ceiling is the best solution when it comes to reducing sound transmission coming from the ceiling. The best soundproofing material for this would be fiberglass batts.
You can also put acoustic foam panels on your ceiling as well as your walls.
Moving Blankets
A great DIY solution for soundproofing your garage is to staple moving blankets to the top of your ceiling. You’ll reduce noise and sound from coming inside. If you want to go an extra step, you can install a drop ceiling so you won’t have to mess with your current garage ceiling.
Resilient Channels/Sound Isolation Clips
While resilient channels can help a bit, sound isolation clips have been proven to soundproof rooms more than channels.
You can screw them directly on wood frames, concrete or steel.
4. Soundproof the Windows
Repair Cracks
If your windows are cracked, you’re going to need to seal them up before your garage will be fully soundproof. It’s not recommended to use caulk to repair your window, it’s best to replace the pane entirely before resuming your soundproofing efforts.
Seal Window Casing
Use green glue acoustical caulk and seal any cracks, holes, or gaps that let sound in around your window.
Acoustic Blanket
Acoustic blankets are similar to blackout curtains, they’re thick and will block out any noise or sunshine coming in. This isn’t necessary to soundproof your garage, but it will keep out all remaining sounds.
5. Soundproof the Floor
Interlocking Floor Mats
You can use puzzle squares to stop sound from bouncing around your hard garage surfaces. It’s not very expensive to install, you will have to move some furniture around to install them though.
If you want to go all the way in garage soundproofing, you can find some old carpet and place it under your floor mats to deaden the sound as much as possible.
Build a Room
For the soundproof fanatics out there, your best bet will be to build a room within a room. By building a room inside a room, you will be perfectly isolated from the sound. This is not recommended to soundproof garage floors as it’s overkill and your mileage may vary.
Final Words
Depending on the construction of your garage, your neighbors, and your desire to soundproof your garage, you may not have a lot to do. I would recommend doing each step independently before moving onward and trying more things.
You might find that all you needed to do was caulk the trim or insulate your garage. You won’t need to go all the way with some of the methods listed above.
Check out how to insulate your garage here.
