Can you soundproof a basement room for loud power tools?
Completely blocking the noise from loud machinery like jointers and chop saws is nearly impossible without spending millions of dollars. Many people assume building thick, solid walls out of heavy wood will work, but quickly realize effective soundproofing requires far more complex designs. This unexpected difficulty often forces them to scrap their DIY workshop plans entirely.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1planning to build walls out of thick pallet wood, solid wood, and glue for mass
- 2Treating the room instead of completely soundproofing it
- 3Using dense furniture like a solid couch and bookcases full of books
- 4Building baffles with rockwool at reflection points
- 5Hanging heavy curtains over windows
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“i need to build a room of some sort to be able to run a jointer (the style that uses knives not helical cutters) and a chop saw (and tools of similar loudness) and have it be as quiet as i can possibly get it within the space i have available”source ↗
“regardless of the pallet wood though i just cant figure out the best way to go about this design wise, at first i thought if i just make the walls super thick out of the pallet boards, solid, glue it all up etc it would be good because of the mass, but apparently theres alot more to it so im just gonna scrap my original designs and ask for help on reddit dot com lmaoo”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3How to soundproof a ceiling in a rental
- 5How to deal with thin walls, broken elevators, and a useless HOA
- 2How to build a closet around exposed ductwork
- 3Why can I hear everything through my apartment door?
- 2How to insulate a drafty floor over a basement or porch
- 2How to insulate garage walls that already have drywall