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mcarterphoto t1_j6gmlbf wrote

I'd start with the steel-edged rubber weather stripping and a door sweep. Get the thing completely sealed. You could hang a sheet of concrete in place of the door, but sound will travel through all the gaps.

Then, get some Owens Corning 703 insulation - it's like fiberglass, but very stiff and you can cut it into shapes, and it's very dense for its weight. Wrap it in burlap or make 1x lumber frames for it and then wrap those - the burlap keeps fibers from shedding, and you can get all sorts of colors. You can treat the panels like bulletin boards and pin photos/etc. to them. Mount those to the door to fully cover the "hollow" panels. That's what's used in sound deadening panels, bass traps, and corner traps in recording studios and is a popular DIY sound deadener. All of that may not make a huge difference though, soundproofing requires a lot of density and air sealing. Putting acoustic panels on walls and ceilings doesn't soundproof a room, it just deadens sound reflections. (I do a lot of video and music editing; my office space has 703 panels hanging from the ceiling, in the corners and on the back walls - it's very noticeable when you walk in the room that something's "changed", but if you don't point out that it has to do with sound, it can kinda freak people out).

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themostempiracal t1_j6gpowo wrote

This is the answer. Hollow core doors are poor sound blockers but much better than air gaps. Work on installing weatherstripping and door sweeps. Then open the window because your co2 is going to build up and get stuffy.

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mcarterphoto t1_j6i7gwg wrote

It's like insulating you home. You can go nuts with fiberglass and house wrap, but one little crack letting cold air in will chill a room out very quickly. Inflitration vs. insulation. Similar with sound, though sound travels "through" things (well, transfers through things). There are lots of construction tricks, like for a quiet room use 2x6 headers and floor plates and frame with 2x4's staggered, so the drywall of both sides isn't physically connected except for the top and bottom. Double up the drywall for more density with the seams staggered. Then fill the space with rockwool or 703 (if you can afford it). But to really have a soundproof wall, far as I know you'll use blocks and fill the voids with concrete.

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marigolds6 t1_j6j5fck wrote

>You can go nuts with fiberglass and house wrap, but one little crack letting cold air in will chill a room out very quickly.

Or, conversely, why throwing down a simple draft blocker or tacking up a single piece of rigid insulation in the right spot, or even just putting plastic film over a key window, can make a huge difference in a room.

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mcarterphoto t1_j6jipkg wrote

That's why there's one outlet in my house that gets blue tape over it when it's freezing out, it almost whistles cold air in! (Yeah, I need to fix that properly...)

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