How To Soundproof A Floor In Your Apartment
May 21, 2022If you live in an apartment it can be especially hard to build your soundproof studio. However, there is a way to design a soundproof floor that is both cost effective and easier than floating a concrete floor. Floating a concrete floor is the best option, but requires hiring someone who, one, knows how to do it and is much more expensive. Plus if your apartment floor cannot hold the weight of a concrete floor then you also will need a different option.
Overview Of The Floor Design
This design is from Rod Gervais in his book: Home Recording Studio: Build It Like The Pros. Gervais is a respected studio designer and his book is what I mostly relied on to build my own home recording studio. His design uses rigid fiberglass and some added mass of plywood to decouple the floor from the apartments original floor. He explains in his book that, while he did not have any proof this design would work he had a theory it would. In the end the studio he designed it for was very pleased and he has since used it in several other studio designs.
Here is the basic design. You can see in the diagram below an in depth view of exactly how this floor is built.
Before you begin installing your floor you want to have all of your walls finished and the drywall completely finished as well. Make sure to use acoustic caulk along the perimeter of your wall and the existing floor to ensure there is an airtight seal.
To start with you want to lay down a layer of 2" - 3 pounds per cubic foot of rigid fiberglass insulation. This will help with decoupling the floor from the existing concrete slab plank. Then you will lay down a layer of 1/2" plywood on top of the rigid fiberglass. Next you will place Green Glue on the back of the second layer of plywood and place it on top of the first layer. Make sure to not line up your seams with the first layer. This will help with keeping your floor airtight. Use 1 and 3/4" wood screws to attach the two pieces of plywood together. Gervais recommends using screws every 8" on center along the edges of the room and every 16" OC throughout the middle of the room.
Lastly, you can install your final flooring. This could be a laminate floor, a hardwood floor or an engineered hardwood floor.
Finally, it's important to note that Gervais shows an extra layer of insulation and a 1x2 board in his diagram against the wall and on top of the new soundproof floor. He doesn't mention much about that, but it could be a way to have acoustic panels built into the wall by having some insulation and fabric covered over it. I wish he had explained this in greater detail since it is really up to guessing what it means. Ultimately, I believe that you would not need to add this extra layer of wall unless you really wanted to. The double wall in the diagram will offer plenty of soundproofing as is.
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