Soundproofing Ideas

[wojocad]

I've been working with a ShopBot owner, so I've heard his installation... pretty loud with the vacuum system running! Fortunately for him, he has a lot of property in the middle of nowhere. I'm considering buying a ShopBot and setting it up in a flat-roofed, one-car garage in a residential neighborhood. Naturally, I'm worried about noise. Does ShopBot publish any literature regarding decibel levels, frequencies, sound control, etc...?


Soundproofing solutions I'm considering for the walls include...

1.filling in the garage door with an insulated wall panel and a man door
2.filling in all garage windows with insulated wall panels
3.adding batt insulation between the exposed wall studs
4.adding 1/2" plywood sheathing to the interior of the exposed wall studs
5.using USG resilient acoustical clips to hang drywall to the face of the plywood
6.I'm also thinking about enclosing the vacuum system in an insulated plywood box under a countertop or possibly attached high up an a wall.

Soundproofing solutions I'm considering for the roof include...

1.adding batt insulation between the exposed rafters
2.adding plywood or drywall to the underside of the rafters

If anyone has additional ideas or actual experience with soundproofing issues, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Thanks!

[Brady Watson]

I've had great results with 2X6 stick walls & R30 insulation + 5/8" rock for the the walls. The ceiling has R30 in it & you can't hear anything but a whisper outside of the shop when cutting the 'loudest' of materials. The ShopBot is only as loud as the router you are going to use with it. Imagine running a hand router. That's your gauge.

As far as the vacuum pump, that's a whole other thing. Large roots-style vacuum pumps are very loud (usually 90-95 dba) and are ideally enclosed in a mechanical room inside or a lean-to type closet outside of the shop. For the majority of applications that I have seen out there, 4 Fein Turbo III industrial shop vacs are more than adequate & only run about 60 dba or less, with 7" HG & a total of 600+ CFM. You don't need a monster vacuum pump to have a good efficient system.

-B

[fleinbach]

world soFirst, I might say, you may not need to go to such extremes measures. My shop is also located in my garage in a residential neighborhood and sometimes I would have three things running at once. These would include the shopbot, my 5 hp grizzly vacuum system and my circular saw, 3 hp planer or bandsaw. It does not disturbe my neighbors, including the closest one whose bedroom walls are literally 13 foot from my garage wall. The walls are made of half-inch plywood with vinyl siding on the outside. I have walked around the outside of my garage while all those tools were running. And they are barely detectable once I am 50 foot from the building.

After saying all that just last weekI added one more piece of equipment, which is the 7 1/2 horsepower roots blower from shopbot . So far I have run the shopbot my vacuum and roots blower and walked around again outside to see how loud it was. The roots blower has increased the volume to the point where it sounds like a muffled lawnmower running within 50 foot of the building. Sometime this weekend, I will stop in and see my neighbor to see whether it can be heard in his house. In any case, I believe I will also be working on some soundproofing.

I have used the USG resilient acoustical clips in my theater rooms for sound control and they work very well. 5/8 drywall, also works far better than half inch for sound control. Half-inch drywall is far better at sound reduction than half-inch plywood.

What I intend to do is inclose the roots blower and my vacuum system together. That way it will take far less material to control the sound.

Edit

While I was writing this Brady made a post and I will say his comment is very accurate about the Fein turbo vacuums. I ran one before I purchased the roots blower, and it does a very good job. In fact, I intend on switching occasionally between the 2 of them since quite a few of my jobs work fine using the Fein Vacuum

[normand]

Make 2 wall of 2x3 and leave a space between them to avoid acoustic bridging. you can also put your vacumm pump in a pit so you only have to insulate the trapp.

[davidp]

We put a simple truck exhaust muffler on the exhaust of our 7.5 kw vaccum pump and vented the exhaust directly out of the building, it is barely audible outside and we can walk comfortably around inside without earmuffs inside. In fact it is much quieter now than a shopvac.

[fleinbach]

David,

I have been considering using an old muffler from a car and was going to ask that very question. I know what a car sounds like when you take a muffler off and it is much louder than a vacuum pump. What type of truck muffler did you use? Or should I ask how large a truck it came off of.

[steve4460]

Hi Guys
A while back I worked on a movie theater and the sheetrock crew put 2 layers of 5/8 sheetrock on just the regular R 13 insulation When I asked the guy doing it he sayed that the sheetrock insulates better for sound becouse it is solid unlike insulation with airpockets . They put the first layer horizontal and the second vertical and only taped the last layer of it .
Just my two cents

Bot on

[davidp]

Frank

I picked one up at the wreckers, a faily large one, just be sure to vent the exhaust to outside particuarly for the first few weeks as the exhaust deposits from the truck are not nice, but the beauty is that the sound is minimal so your neighbours will not complain.

[wojocad]

Stephan, that 2 layers of sheet rock idea rings a bell for me too. I remember talking to an acoustical consultant once (about wall types for a theatre job), and he said you want MASS to stop sound. Thanks for reminding me.

[pfulghum]

http://www.soundproofing.org
http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/so...ofing_tips.htm


Basically....

- Isolate the exterior and interior walls with staggered studs or resiliant channel.
- Use metal studs (if possible)
- Use 24" center (if possible).
- Add mass for absorbtion (fiberglass/cellulose in the wall cavities and 2+layers of drywall)

CHeck out the website for all kinds of goodies.

I have spent a small fortune building a shop in a residential area, I will post pictures and ideas soon...

-- pat