People are often more sensitive to sound than they let on. For instance, when people go out to eat, the list noise as being one of the most annoying things they experience when dining out, according to Restaurant Development’s 2015 “State of Dining in America” survey. The same principle is at work in people’s home environments where ambient noise can be bad for your hearth. When area noise rises about 40 decibels, the incidence of heart disease go up. There are a lot of things you can do to make your home less noisy. From buying a better dishwasher to installing decorative laminate, you can reduce the noise pollution in your home.
- Make less noise. That may seem easier said than done but there are things you can do to cut down on the amount of noise you create. When you buy appliances, there are quiet options. Manufacturers understand that decorative laminate can only do so much and that the more quiet appliances are, the better. Getting newer and more quiet appliances can made a very significant difference in the noise level of your home. Also, install things like your washer and dyer in places that are not right next to sleeping areas.
- Use acoustic building products. There are a number of acoustic wall coverings, acoustic ceiling clouds, decorative laminate and sound insulation panels that can be used around your home. A lot of these make a lot of sense if you need to make one room soundproof so that budding drummer you have can practice without making the rest of your family crazy. Sound blocking curtains are great, as well. If you do not want to go all out and get the materials that make your space soundproof, you can put rugs or carpeting down in the place of hardwood floors, which just lets the sound bounce off the floor onto the ceiling and walls. One good thing about decorative laminates is that you can get this material for both your floor and your ceiling and it both looks great and blocks sound.
- Use the right door. Conventional doors act a lot like a drum. The interior is hollow and cannot do much to block sound from going from room to room. Having solid doors in the place of the traditional, hollow ones can make a big difference in cutting down on the noise level in your home. In fact, this is one of the easiest ways to keep sound from wandering through your house. Solid doors do come with a higher price tag but it can really be worth it.
- Use weatherstripping on the doors inside your home. You need to block the sound that passes around each door. This is easy enough to do when you apply some weatherstripping to the door. Even if you do not want to take the leap and replace all of your hollow doors with solid ones, installing weatherstripping can still make a big difference in the noise level of your home. Think of this in a similar way you think of the weatherstripping on your exterior doors.
- Get a better sound system. When many people buy speakers, they go for whatever is inexpensive. These produce a lot more noise than they need to. The main issue is normally created by the subwoofer. If you get a pad to put under the subwoofer, you can block some of the noise the stereo makes without changing the amount of music that you hear. You get all of the music and a lot less of the noise. Of course, you can also upgrade your speakers for high fidelity models that will create less of the noise as well.
- Make your floors less squeaky. For most of the day, hardwood floors are no problem at all. At night, when everyone is trying to sleep, they can be squeaky. There are things you can do to lower the squeak level of your hardwood floors. Head over to your local home improvement store to get what you need to lower the noise level in your home.
Making your home less noisy is possible and everyone in the home will thank you once it is more peaceful.