To my mind old fashioned hardwood floors are far more trouble than they are worth, especially now that we have better and better Engineered Floors available. An engineered floor is not a cheap plastic laminate on masonite floating floor. It is a very stable, usually pre-finished, real massive h...
Ray from Rothesay, N.B. has a rumbling sound in his hot water heating pipes. Servicemen drained them twice, thinking it was air in the pipes, but no improvement.First idea, maybe it is a bad bearing in the circulation pump. You can check that out by putting your ear right to the pump when it ki...
Craig from Calgary, Alberta has built a woodworking shop in the basement of his house. He wants to cut off the sound from there that is travelling up through the heating ducts that run through the room.First, use aluminium duct tape to seal off all leaks in the ducts. More sound will travel thr...
One of our viewers lives in an apartment over a noisy basement suite and wants to know what are their options to blocking the noise.Soundproofing is never a perfect thing and although each possible action can have an important effect, the sum of all the actions together can be less than you expec...
All washing machines vibrate when they go into the spin cycles. Top loading machines have the tubs suspended on springs that create a primary bad vibration as they build up to speed. If the load is too unbalanced, they bang around and the machine stops. If the load is only a bit unbalanced, th...
One of our viewers asked about sound proofing a basement room. That is a big topic but here is some information.The QUALITY of sound in a room is the subject of ACOUSTICS, not sound proofing. Acoustical tiles and sponges on the walls do not do much to stop noise movement to or from the rest of ...
In this TV segment we followed a sound proofing specialist through a home, testing it for problems, and indicating some solutions. Elsewhere in this database you will find more through discussions on soundproofing various parts of your house.The photo shows the use of Z-bars or resilient bars on...
Outdoor sound system speakers are subject to the elements, but some are made for just that. One of the easiest is a water resistant speaker system (the paper on the speaker drum is replaced with a water resistant material) that is wireless. A small transmitter in the house feeds its signal to t...
Although the Canadian building codes list about 160 acceptable ways to soundproof party walls, it all comes down to taking care of three basic things.Low frequencies travel through the structure, so the more you separate the structure of one apartment from the structure of the other, the more...
Larry Gullins of G & G Electronics in Whitby, Ontario builds home theatres so we sought him out for some design recommendations.Locate the screen in the centre of a wall at the longest point in the room, not on the short side -- you need depth for the best effect. The best room shape is re...
