How Carpet Helps Soundproof Rooms
Maybe you have a family with small children or dogs living downstairs, or maybe your upstairs neighbors blare loud TV or video games late in the night. Or maybe you like to listen to loud music and don’t want to upset the neighbors. Either way, carpeted floors with a high-quality carpet pad can make a huge difference in the amount of sound pollution that comes through the walls and floor of your house.
The Problem of Noise
When you walk around on your floors, play music, or make noise in other ways, you vibrate the air, which then vibrates the floor itself. When the floor vibrates, so does the air on the other side (your downstairs neighbor’s ceiling), which can be extremely irritating. To make matters worse, sound can bounce off of hard, smooth floors like wood and into the walls, leaking noise from side to side as well as up and down.
Carpet is the Answer
The solution? Reduce that vibration. When sound waves hit carpets, the carpet fibers absorb the energy of the sound rather than bouncing or transmitting it, so the room as a whole (and the rooms on the other side) is much quieter. Carpet can reduce the sound of walking on floors by up to 35 decibels, whereas laminate flooring only reduces sound by about five decibels.
Carpet padding is important, too. It’s tempting to choose the softest carpet padding, thinking it will be the most comfortable, but that’s a mistake. A denser, sturdier carpet pad will ease pressure on your feet, extend the life of your carpet, and absorb sound much more effectively than a soft pad.
Additional Soundproofing Tips
Carpet isn’t the only way to reduce the amount of noise that comes into or out of your home. There are a few other simple tips you can use to supplement your carpet or in rooms where carpet isn’t the best option (like dining rooms).
- Use bookcases. The thick paper of books will help absorb sound, so if you have a lot of books to mount, save them for a particularly noisy wall.
- Mount speakers. Your home entertainment system is one of the biggest sources of noise, so mounting your speakers on a vibration insulation pad (or just a simple throw rug) will cut down on noise transmission substantially.
- Install a door sweep. A door sweep is a piece of rubber that gets mounted to the bottom of a door, filling the gap between the door and the floor and reducing the amount of vibration that gets through.
- Decorate your walls with fabric. If you have decorative rugs or wall hangings, hang them on a strip of wood with a small gap between the fabric and the wall. That air gap will help reduce noise.
Stop by Sloane’s
If you’re in the market for a new carpet in your home — or even just in one room — come to Sloane’s! We have a wide variety of carpets in every color, material, and style you could imagine, and our stock is constantly rotating. If you don’t find a carpet that’s right for you and your family, come back in two weeks!
And since we work directly with carpet manufacturers, we’re able to offer brand-name, top shelf carpet irregulars at 50 to 70 percent off of what you’d pay at other retailers. Give us a call at 303-300-9555 or book an appointment to look around the showroom!