Not to dork out, but you need a control. Better test would be same room, same location of meter and same sound (consistent volume) in room b4 and after spray foam.

TLDR: spray foam sucks. Adding a double drywall ceiling with some sort of isolation (green glue), or additional mass on the floor above are going to be the best improvements. You want air tightness to reduce transmission, and isolation+mass to reduce sound conduction. Insulation can Sometimes help with air tightness, but personally I would use it to reduce echoes.

That is some DANG-SOLID Woodworking and reinforcement. Impressive.

I've used hat channel underneath floor joists prior to hanging sheet rock. It seemed to work quite well, although I didn't use sound measuring devices.

Interesting experiment. The fact that sound travels through solid material beats any absorption by the foam. A good “soft & thick” carpet will help a lot. Shame the camera polaroid filter was blackening the noise meter screen.

you need to do a baseline test to see if the spray foam actually worked or not.

When I built my studio (30x50) in an industrial building, I added a layer of sound board and another layer of drywall between the office and studio space. On the windows, I added 2 more layers of glass of different thicknesses and distance between layers, which cuts different frequencies. In the studio on top of 5/8" drywall, I added another layer of 5/8" drywall attached to Z metal. You couldn't hear traffic a from the nearby 4 lane boulevard except at 3:15pm; everyday a guy on a crotch-rocket would leave work. On the ceiling and part way down the 12 ft. wall, 1" duck board insulation was laid flat. It preformed very well to reduce a major amount of reverb in an open space, , but cost $1200 at the time. With time and money, we can achieve most anything we can think of. Cheers

In an unfinished home there's so many factors impacting sound. Should've waited until things were almost done then do a test before & after foam is added to the same room.

Had 4" of closed cell sprayed inside older home roof so I could open up ceiling height. Rain not as loud but still can hear it, along with aircraft and road noise. I also put 1/8" acoustic matt (250lbs a roll) on traffic side wall before 5/8" sheetrock. Can't justify QuietRock cost but now the source of noise are the windows...😐

I'll give you that foam will reduce sound but just by a few decibels and particularly with higher frequencies but will do close to nothing at isolating bass. The typical misunderstanding between sound absortion and isolation is that foams and light, absorbent materials reduce sound transmission when they only reduce sound reflection but keeps traveling through these materials. MASS is the only way to isolate sound, these are heavy compact materials such as concrete, steel, glass, etc. So, if you are looking to reduce the noise from upstairs don't waste your money in foams and better add a layer or two of plywood, OSB or even sheetrock to your ceilings and make sure the gaps between them and the perimeter are filled with mastic. Recessed lights and such should be boxed in plywood too and sealed with mastic. Great videos btw, thank you for taking the time to make them and sharing !

Matt I love your videos. What do you think about that bat insulation by Owens Corning that is design for sound reduction between walls? I didn't really notice a difference but was wondering what you thought about it. Looking forward to more of your videos. It's the best building videos I've seen on KZfaq.

what kind offloor are u puting in ht e bonus room?

Matt, in New England we rarely see 1 1/8 sub floor. Mostly 3/4. Do you think it is that much of an improvement when using 16 OC Floor framing? Thanks

Matt, What about the reverse - from the first floor to a second floor room on the opposite side ? Would spray foam reduce the noise?

could only imagine this being a worthwhile test if you did before and after spray foam in the same room. A little better planning would have made all the difference!!

With 2 inch spray foam on a cathedral ceiling you can really hear the rain, with cellulose added it is very quiet.

Hey Matt Great video Lots of good info. Did you consider Mass Loaded vinyl? Also slightly off topic - Could you air seal the inside of a garage to separate it from living space with with poly wall and then insulate with blown in cellulose or roxul?

Nice house!

My dad used to have us put 1/2 plywood and felt paper over it . Then we nailed down 5/8 particle board for a nice quiet and WARM floor . We then used putty on all the particle board joints.

love the calibrated boots and voice

Would be interesting to see more information about the framing that took place. Stud spacing and floor truss spacing to carry the additional load. From the first few seconds of the video, if stud spacing is 16" centers, trusses look to be 19.2" centers with simple math and where they land on studs. Love your videos but would love to see more details so we can be educated enough to ask our structural engineer about other options.

Is that tarpaper and either some sort of a light duty “rebar” for tile? Or is it the heating coils for heating a floor?

Most of the sound is transferred directly thru the structure, the floor joists, not the open cavity between. You have to insulate over the structure to really do anything significant

Sorry this is like listening to a snake oil sales man. The cheap sound level meter seem to make it scientific but the sound level meter has a noise floor of 40 dB. That is pretty lousy. Even with a lowest building code you should meet 45+ dB reduction between upstairs and downstairs. So if you talk at a sound level of 70 dB you want to measure something below 25 dB... well the sound level meter does not even show anything below 40 dB. So the video does not proof anything. Matt should really do this show in a finished home and not in a home that is under construction. The reduction of the floor is really a combination of the gypsum boards, isolation system, absorption in the cavity, etc. In the 2nd example without foam on the ceiling there is an open stairway right next to the room. I bet the main path of the sound goes right up the stairways. I don't think this video proofs anything about the spray foam.

Any insulation, is only part of the total solution. Spray foam air seals, it helps with mid and high frequencies and finding air gaps. Combine with fiberglass/rockwool, to close up between joists to stop the space from being a resonator. Then, decouple from the joists. RC then add mass with double drywall. This addresses "foot stomping" and pets nails.

+1 on foam insulation not doing shit for noise. Paid good money for this in my house 10 years ago and it was not worth it

Our home in Houston was flooded recently, so we had black mold and lots of damage...total loss. Now we want to use open cell foam but what we got from Fema is literally almost gone and we have not yet fixed the interior, that is floors, walls, insulation on the attic and walls, ac ducts (full of black mold), electricity and so on. So my question is...can we use close cell foam with ridgit foam board? what we want is to stop water on the walls at least half of them, stop the grow of mold which we have a huge issue on the walls (inside)...can we do that? We do not want to use fiberglass to avoid the same problem..water soaking it and black mold growing like crazy. Our budget is very very very tight so we need to combine the close cell foam with something else. the depth is 3 inches and 8 feet tall walls. Thank you

would be good if we could see the reading at your sound level meter

I use to be a Builder and Developer of high-end homes .. wood is a poor sound barrier, instead it's a good conductor of sound. You would need to float both the floor and floor joist to reduce sound transmission. Look into products like _U-Boat Floor Floaters_ or other similar products.

I want to see more of the lower level curved stairway, looks very interesting. You will also find a significant reduction in speaking noise transmission once the drywall encloses a dead air space, not so much with impact transmission though.

Matt, do you put these sheets of pink insulation in the inner walls (between rooms) for sound proofing as well? Thank you.

Double sheetrock your walls over insulation,same with the ceiling it works a lot better, just watch a video on it, works great and not that much.

What windows did you go with in this house?

The only economic and effective way to deaden a floor in construction is to isolate (decouple) the deck and ceiling from the joists. (There is a more effective solution see the end). Increasing the mass, (eg using concrete) would work, but be very costly. Most of the vibration in conventional home construction isn't through the air space, but through air penetrations and directly transferred between the deck and ceiling through the joists. That structure it acts as a unified rigid membrane within each set of walls. Some damping can be done by placing a dissimilar material between the tops of the joists and the deck but this material needs to bear the floor's loading, so can't block very low frequency vibration. If the ceiling is suspended from hangers with elasticity under tension, or by a light joists that are isolated from the loadbearing one of the floor above, only the air can couple the floor to the ceiling. The mass of the ceiling will act to dampen higher frequencies, partially through cathat sound. A ceiling composed of isolated pieces would be more effective tha a similar material installed as a continuous sheet, and tiles made of alternating layers of rigid and elastic materials will be more effective at converting vibration to heat than a conventional ceiling with one layer of sprayed on foam -regardless of the thickness of the foam layer. Compare the costs of these techniques against carpet floor covering with a dense pad. The carpet will cost less and reduce sound better than a poured concrete floor.

Is this open or closed cell foam insulation?

How do you sound insulate the perfect wall house?

I ve been watching Moe sargi for like a year now. watching this video i can literally see how he was hearing footsteps from upstairs still knowing theres no one upstairs. Dayam.

I’m curious to know you’ve displayed sound proof membrane I believe was a product from Keene how does if compare

this place is huge

This was the silliest test, if you can call it that....ever

This video is really an unfair comparison. If it was me I would have like a boom box let's say in the upper floor. Play a file that generates a certain DB of sound before the spray foam is applied. Then redo the same test with everything in the exact same position and boom box sound levels, and redo the test. Room sizes can generate different DB level acoustics based on size, material, etc.

If my kids are upstairs stomping around, I tell them to KNOCK IT OFF!

Sound waves travel most effectively through dense encapsulated structures( Spray foamed), Isolating materials that vary in density, is what reduces the sound waves ability to conduct through the structure.

That house is f’ing massive

Thanks Matt! I'm curious on how closed cell foam would perform as an sound dampening medium.

Spray foam sucks for sounds. Sprayed a 2x6 wall. One side bathroom one side garage. Can hear through it clear as day. A perfect house is 2x8 structure, 6 inches of foam and then roxul for sound on top of that. Not to mention it's a fire barrier

why not mass loaded vinyl?

But how does it compare to Roxio Safe n’ sound?

Roxul is a great sound attenuation material with isolated drywall

We used this same material for living space over a 3 car garage. The major annoyance is from the electric garage door operators, bolted to the garage ceiling. Hardly hear sounds from the garage or living space above. Our focus was on a cold floor, sound proofing was not a consideration.

See all the steel reinforcement he's walking on? On the upstairs floor? They're going to pour lightweight concrete on the upstairs floor. GUESS WHAT? The lightweight concrete, or tile over cork or dense rubber underlayment or even OSB will isolate noise from upstairs and not allow it to travel through the framing members to the floors below. What most people don't know is that the sound will transmit through the floor joists! So, the only effective sound dampening is to separate the floor joists from the floor surface. See above: Lightweight concrete, tile over cork or even OSB over the underlayment. Isolation. Physics.

I wouldn't mind to see if you used closed cell insulation???

Must say that is a huge house 🏡

This house ain't normal. That entry is bigger than my whole house !

Just use rockwool, resilient channels and 5/8 drywall to soundproof anything else is a waste of time.

Has anyone mentioned that 10db difference (65 vs 55) means no-spray-foam is twice as loud? Decibel is on logarithmic scale.

Most of the vocal energy is being absorbed by the open insulation. Spray foam will be good for preventing sound transmission because it seals openings. But it doesn't have the mass to absorb any significant amount of energy. My guess is that it will be better at damping than say wall board.

look like wire for concrete on the floor? That will really cut the sound

Sorry to be negative but the quality of the insulation install makes me wonder, look over his shoulder at 3:50, how packed and in even it is. it needs to be as unpacked and puffy as possible, that's how it works.

Got the windows open mate

What is better on an existing basement ceiling? Existing drywall+woodfiberboard+RC channel+additional 5/8" drywall. VS " "+ RC channel+5/8" drywall+green glue +5/8" drywall.

Should've set the decibel meter to peak recording for the stomping test. It's probably doing some averaging and not recording the real peak of the decibel for each footfall. I can't really see the screen, but there is a "FAST" setting for most of the Extech devices.

Thats a nice staircase, not gonna make a squeek ever. Looks tedius as fuck to build though lol

Is there a solution for how echoey and loud the new open concept homes are? Anytime I go to a party at a home I can hardly hear myself. There has to be a solution to absorb the sound other than rugs and textiles. Thanks!

Spray foam is somewhat effective but sound energy still travels down the joists. Resilient strips (Z-shaped channel) and two layers of 5/8" drywall is the way to go.....the mass of the drywall cancels out the deflection by the sound waves traveling through the joists.

The reason there wasn't a change is because the vibrations travel through the exposed wood framing. I would bet that if you cover the wood with foam you would notice a difference.

Would this work for drums?

Test it with a drum set! Or low bass guitar amp

Red wing boots 👍are the best

Was it open or closed cell spray foam?

You have to have a quality AV guy in your area. Have them come out and do a show and tell on sound transference. (sound proofing ain't going to happen unless you really care to drop some coin) If you don't know one I am close and would be happy to refer someone to you. Otherwise your game is always on point.

test at 3:30

We're going to tell you on Friday's version? Bye!

Spray foam of any type will do great for air-ducted sound transfer as well as damping the subfloor undersurface from radiating footfalls. Since the joists are rigidly connected to the subfloor, once drywall is also rigidly connected to the joists, those footfalls will be much louder since the ceiling is now a wide, flat and hard transducer face. I'm guessing the flooring product going in is a different density than the subfloor, but the underlayment looks loosely laid over the subfloor, not rigidly bonded so you don't get the best benefit from rigid bonding of different densities. The other comments about hanging the drywall (perhaps using the product you showed previously for long and super smooth walls) are correct. Either way, I look forward to the finished house re-test. We had good results using the spray foam to cut air-ducted transfer and lots of mass to dampen rigid sound transfer. Not excellent like drywall hangers or QuietRock, but way, way cheaper. Thanks for the video.

That staircase is sexy as heck!

Use Rock wool insulation between the Floor joists - snug, but not compressed. (You could even use fibre glass as it's almost as good, but cheaper.) Then install foam sill gasket to the underside of the ceiling joists. Then install 5/8" Type X Drywall to the ceiling. Then install another layer of foam sill gasket to the underside of the 5/8 ceiling drywall in line with the ceiling joists. Then install a second layer of 5/8" Type X Drywall which will become the finished ceiling. Essentially you have a layer cake of drywall and foam with the mineral wool sound deadner. Results should be very good.

Dense pack cellulose is better for noise reduction!!!

After install the floor and the sheetrock is going be better sound proof

resilliant channel takes care of 90% of thru-floor sound transmission provided there are no direct air paths.

I'd be more worried about using open cell foam it's a huge growing bed for mold......

I wonder where is the "Quiet Rock" or am I a little early.

open cell????ummmm,,no

There is a glare on the meter, can't see it clearly.

This would be way more accurate to put the DB meter about a foot away from the floor in the center.

Need a control. This proves nothing.

You need to close the room off, when shouting the sound meter is picking up the sound through the passageway vs through the floor.

I wish i had this... howling neighbor dogs fuck!

No wonder US houses are so dirt cheap. Are they really just made out of timber and I assume plasterboard? Walls should be concrete or concrete blocks. Floors maybe timber but my last flat also had concrete between floors as well. What stops them going up in flames? I suppose the reason they get washed away in floods is because being timber they are light and float. Everything being timber just looks so weird and flimsy.

Thanks for sharing. With 20% of your floor area being solid wood, you,re not off to a good start.

I've seen some real horror stories about spray foam. The problem is that the finished mixture is at the spray gun tip.

Open cell foam's performance is not as good as closed cell according to the foam people I spoke with. Or maybe just a sales pitch.

Open cell does some sound control but closed cell can actually increase noise by coupling .Your test is false as the fibreglass pink helps control you voice. Make sure you mention yours is open cell.

A lot of that sound likely came through the doorways.

or follow you on instagram to see what was done :)

Your wall insulation in that house looks overly compressed, you losing a large r value by that.

Can I put this between mine and my parents room? If I hear them one more time I'm running away.

cellulose is the way to go ;)

Double bottom plate your pouring self leveling concrete to sound proof been around for ever.

Yeah this house could be of soundproofed but unfortunately not fire resistant..

😬