Soundproofing Spray Foam Insulation Alberta

Two kinds of noise, two different fixes

Airborne noise travels through the air and through the gaps in an assembly: voices, television, traffic, music, barking. It gets in through air paths and through the panel of the wall vibrating.

Impact noise is transmitted through the structure itself: footsteps overhead, a dropped object, a door slamming, plumbing in the wall.

Insulation addresses the first well and the second hardly at all. Impact noise needs decoupling - resilient channel, isolation clips, separated framing - because the sound is travelling through the studs and joists, not through the air between them.

Any assessment that does not start by asking which one you have is not a real assessment.

Open-cell is the acoustic product

For sound, open-cell outperforms closed-cell, and this is one of the few applications where that is true.

Open-cell is soft and porous. Sound energy entering it is absorbed as it moves through the cell structure. Closed-cell is rigid and dense, and rigid materials transmit vibration more readily than they absorb it.

Closed-cell is the better insulator; open-cell is the better sound absorber. Choose for the job at hand. See open-cell.

Where it works well

• Interior partitions in a house - between a bedroom and a living area, around a home office or theatre room.
• Floor assemblies between storeys, for airborne sound.
• Party walls in multi-family construction, where it also contributes to compartmentalisation. See multi-family.
• Mechanical rooms and utility spaces, where equipment noise is the source.
• Around a shop or garage adjoining living space.

Where it will not do what you want

Foam alone will not turn a normal wall into a recording studio. A high-performance acoustic assembly needs mass, decoupling and absorption working together, and absorption is only one of the three.

It also does very little against low-frequency sound - a subwoofer, a heat pump, a truck idling - because long wavelengths pass through absorptive material largely unaffected. That is a mass and isolation problem.

We would rather tell you this before the quote than have you discover it after.

Soundproofing Spray Foam Insulation Alberta: Common Questions

Will foam stop me hearing my neighbour's TV? Substantially reduce it, in most cases. Whether it is enough depends on how loud, how close and what the wall is made of now. Sealing the air paths is often the bigger share of the improvement.

Will it stop footsteps from upstairs? No, not on its own. That is impact noise and it needs structural decoupling. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.

Closed-cell is more expensive, so is it better for sound? No. For sound, open-cell is the better product and the cheaper one. This is the exception to the usual rule.

Can it be added to an existing wall? Only if the cavity is opened or the foam is injected. In a renovation where the drywall is already coming off, it is easy and cheap to add.

Get an honest assessment

Get a quote and describe the noise - what it sounds like, where it comes from, and when. That tells us which problem you have. See open-cell and residential.