Insul-Quilt for soundproofing?

smeet · #1 09-04-2008, 06:05 PM

Does anybody know much about this product for soundproofing? http://www.insulquilt.net

It looks too good to be true, blocking out a lot of sound with very little weight. I want to soundproof a room so my neighbors aren't bothered. Can I get good results with this and a layer of drywall? Or should I use this plus sheetrock? Or sheetbloc?

I'm in a single-story house. How important is it to treat the floor and ceiling?

bongomania · #2 09-04-2008, 06:16 PM

All of those sound-absorbing materials are great for deadening reflections in a room, and they work well with traditional soundproofing methods, but they are not a soundproofing method by themselves. To soundproof a room you build a second room inside the first one, and then seal any gaps that air may pass through. Sometimes the double walls are built with just "dead air" between them; sometimes regular fiberglass insulation is used; and sometimes high-tech acoustic insulation like the insulquilt material is used. But the insulquilt by itself is not a method of soundproofing. If you do want to build a second set of walls (and floor and ceiling) then I bet the insulquilt is as good as they claim.

smeet · #3 09-04-2008, 07:48 PM

Thanks bongomania, but have you looked at their claims?

They say:
"NIC (STC) 50 rating is achieved using 5/8" drywall with Insul-Quilt vs. a NIC 32 ratingusing drywall alone."

That seems to imply if I pull off the existing drywall, fill the space with insul-quilt, and re-drywall, I will get a significant reduction in transmission. Is that true? That's not quite a room within a room, is it?

If the drywall is hung with those isolating rails (I forget the name), and there are no holes in the quilt or the drywall, does that qualify as room-within-a-room? Or would it have to be drywall/quilt/drywall?

Thanks!

bongomania · #4 09-04-2008, 09:14 PM

I think the determining factor is whether there's solid wall on the other side. The goal is to create a space of dead air where sound waves are not transferred; how well that succeeds depends on the outside wall. IOW in your case, where the room is in your house, the outside wall is probably enough. But if you were in a building that shared a wall with the neighbors, it might not work as well.

rob2966 · #5 09-04-2008, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeet

Thanks bongomania, but have you looked at their claims?

They say:
"NIC (STC) 50 rating is achieved using 5/8" drywall with Insul-Quilt vs. a NIC 32 ratingusing drywall alone."

That seems to imply if I pull off the existing drywall, fill the space with insul-quilt, and re-drywall, I will get a significant reduction in transmission. Is that true? That's not quite a room within a room, is it?

If the drywall is hung with those isolating rails (I forget the name), and there are no holes in the quilt or the drywall, does that qualify as room-within-a-room? Or would it have to be drywall/quilt/drywall?

Thanks!

The isolating rails you refer to are called "resiliant channel". I have been looking into using QuietRock 530 instead of drywall to finish my studio room. I will also put some R13 in behind the QuietRock. Not as good as a insulated double wall with offset studs but should be pretty decent.

Later
Rob

PS - No soundproofing solution is A) perfect or B) cheap.

smeet · #6 09-05-2008, 12:11 PM

Cool Rob, QuietRock looks like a great product. How are you going to attach the QuietRock? They say it's better than resilient channel. Is the combination of the two even better?

Sheetblok, QuietRock, Insul-Quilt, mass/air/mass, ...

I'm so confused as to the best/cheapest/easiest way to go about it. I guess I'll keep reading for a while before I do anything.

sirpug · #7 09-05-2008, 02:33 PM

I went through all of this recently and let me save you some time/money. Unless you have a budget of about $8,000, sound PROOFING is impossible but sound ABSORBING is. Trust me; my band spent at least $1,000 on various products claiming these types of results with no real luck. What we found was that these blankets help allot with reducing the mid to high freqs but do very little to quite the low freqs. We ended up covering our walls with some old shag carpet and a layer of those sound absorbing blankets (because we already bought them). Then we got a bunch of the foam bass absorbers and put a couch in our studio (I was surprised at the difference the couch made in the level of bass heard outside the shed). The key is to absorb and break up the bass waves so I set up next to the couch with my cab pointing straight at it (about 3/4 of the couch is still usable for it’s intended function). This setup seems to turn the annoying rumble into more of an ignorable thump. After that, I invited the neighbors that had complained when we started playing there over and showed them all the effort we had made to accommodate their concerns. I think that showing them we cared and that we were trying actually did more to make them happy than all the money and time we spent. We were able to agree on suitable practice times for us when they would be least bothered. I'm happy to say that we've been jamming cop free for about 2.5 months. This is just my experience; a conversation and a compliment go a long way toward keeping the peace. Good luck

P.S. All the blankets look cool when people come over too. Makes it look like we're more pro than we are.

sirpug · #8 09-05-2008, 02:37 PM

I should also add that we tried most of the "quick" fixes and "tribal" knowledge sound ideas out there (i.e. egg cartons, etc.) and that none of them work. Again, do what you can but good public relations are the key to a successful home studio. Unless your loaded, then just buy all the houses around you. Problem solved.

rob2966 · #9 09-05-2008, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeet

Cool Rob, QuietRock looks like a great product. How are you going to attach the QuietRock? They say it's better than resilient channel. Is the combination of the two even better?

Sheetblok, QuietRock, Insul-Quilt, mass/air/mass, ...

I'm so confused as to the best/cheapest/easiest way to go about it. I guess I'll keep reading for a while before I do anything.

Because the sound "proofing" is in the material, you can actually just attach it like regular drywall. You do need to seal the seams with special caulking that stays flexible. No resilient channel required. Once the seams have been sealed, you can tape, mud, and paint like regular drywall.

However, the previous poster is correct, my 10' x 25' studio will cost about $5000 in materials alone

. Sound proofing is not cheap.

Later
Rob

sirpug · #10 09-05-2008, 09:34 PM

If this QuietRock attaches like sheet rock, look for isolation mounts. If you just screw them to your studs no amount of insulation is going to help you. Remember that sound travels in waves and if you screw directly to the studs, the waves will just transfer through the screws and studs and out into the world. They make isolation mounts that prevent the sound waves from transferring between the sheet rock (QuietRock?) and the studs. The mounts attach to the studs, or the already existing sheet rock, and then you put another layer of sheet rock over the top. This allows the first layer of sheet rock to vibrate and not transfer those vibrations to the outer wall.

Beej · #11 09-06-2008, 09:05 AM

We used Insulquilt to sound dampen our meeting room at work. It completely removed the high frequency sounds traveling out and dampened the midrange sounds. The bass sound was unchanged. So it was definitely a good investment for quieting the room itself in a meeting room, where most of the extraneous sound is higher pitched (table noise, voices, equipment noise), but I wouldn't buy it to prevent sound either from traveling outside, or to soundproof for music, especially bass...