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Background

I live about 350 m from a rail yard. The idling engine are rather noisy. Within my house, only the very low frequencies usually make it through the walls to the living space. I haven't done any measurements, but my guess would be that the peak frequency of this noise is sub- 100 Hz and possibly sub 40 Hz. It is fairly low magnitude (i.e. unless you're sitting in a quiet room trying to work or sleep, it isn't very noticeable)

I am currently doing a renovation of the house, taking the walls down to studs. I would like to reduce the magnitude of this low-frequency noise through the appropriate selection of building materials, wall design, and possibly application-specific technologies (recognizing that these will have added costs).

My question:

What can I do in wall construction to attenuate low-frequency (~40Hz?) noise?

The perfect answer will provide successful, proven examples and explain the theoretical underpinnings.

Existing questions

  • This question is talking about options outside of the house, like an earth berm. This is not an option for me, and the house is 2-storeys so an exterior barrier is not feasible.
  • These questions: (1, 2 3) are looking for solutions that don't involve re-constructing a wall.
alex_danielssen
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1 Answers1

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After comments:
You won't achieve this in a domestic build, unless you're starting from scratch. You need mass & air-gapping (de-coupling). When you're dealing with such low frequencies & large masses as a building, you need to be floating sections on engineering rubber. Nothing with stud walls can achieve this. You start with concrete or stone.

btw, I may only be an amateur when it comes to most DIY projects, but I am a professional sound engineer, have self-built small studios & was responsible for building 7 commercial studios back in the 90s. We had a budget of 1.5 million pounds [for the conversion alone] & started in an old Victorian factory/warehouse with 3ft thick stone walls. The build/design itself was done by Harris Grant

As also mentioned in comments - stuffing the walls with rockwool etc will just waste money at frequencies below 100Hz & be nothing but an expensive disappointment.

There is some mileage from multi-ply walls on staggered studs [so the boards on one side have no transmission contact with the other side], all floated on heavy neoprene blocks; multiple layers of sheet materials of differing densities - thick drywall/Minerit etc, air-gap, thin drywall or plywood, more air-gap, 'rubber' sheet Revac or engineering neoprene to absorb & energy-disspiate at different frequencies…
…but you will still be expensively disappointed down at 40Hz.

Tetsujin
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