Echo (sound) dampening options - special paints?

[readiescards]

So I've watched numerous house building projects and always thought when the presenter goes into the finished dwelling and says how nice it is but in doing so you can hear an awful echo I don't want that.

 

Now I find that with my newly plastered rooms I've got a terrible echo - immediately before any window dressings or soft furnishings but given we have UFH and therefore are putting down a hard covering (luxury vinyl tiles) I can't see there being much sound dampening provided.  (FYI Ceilings are plasterboard with Icynene spray foam above which is nicely preventing sound travelling floor to floor)

 

Question: any echo reduction techniques worth putting it in at this bare wall stage?  Does sound deadening paint help reduce echo?

[PeterW]

I've never seen any paint that claims to reduce sound - products for sound reduction work by absorption or diffraction of sound and would either have to be quite thick or have an uneven texture. 

 

Echoing soon disappears when you put a few things into a room - I wouldn't be concerned at this stage.  

[Bitpipe]

Once you have a few soft items (sofa, curtains etc) then you'll be fine.

 

In our first new build, we had a separate dining room that had wood floor, wooden blinds and wooden table and chairs, dresser etc - all hard surfaces and it was a bit of an echo chamber.

 

Solution was to knock up four 600x600 wooden frames and stretch & staple some fabric over them (we used an old pair of silk curtains that didn't fit anywhere). Then we hung them on the wall as a bit of home made 'art'. Was actually quite effective at softening the dynamics of the room. 

[JanetE]

We're going to have the same issue, we have slate  floors downstairs.  As I'm a bit deaf it is going to be a problem. So curtains at the long windows, rugs on the floors, a couple of tall bookcases.  Have a seen rugs or fabric panels a la @Bitpipe on the walls as well!!

[AliG]

We have hard floors everywhere except bedrooms at the moment, but the only rooms were echoes are a problem are bathrooms as there are no curtains or other soft furnishings.

 

Even the kitchen has no echo issue and just has some quite skimpy curtains.

 

Sound dampening needs weight so I don't see how it is possible with paint.The easiest ways are prob via rugs and curtains. The panels mentioned can be bought quite cheaply off EBAY or made yourself if you want. BTW leather sofas are much worse than fabric for sound deadening as leather reflects sound and fabric absorbs it, something I didn't know until last week.

 

The main time I notice the problem is when I call my wife at home on the phone. If she wonders into a bathroom I can immediately tell as the echo makes her voice indistinct and I struggle to make out what she is saying.

 

Similarly where it might cause an issue is watching TV as if there is a lack of sound deadening in the room, the echoing can muffle the sound from the speakers, so if I worried about any room I would worry about the main place you watch tv.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

16 minutes ago, AliG said:

Sound dampening needs weight

 

I thought it was more finish than weight.

 

Sound reducing paints are like this one:

https://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/coat-of-silence/coat-of-silence.html

 

Material wallpapers (flock, hessian), tapestries or cork tiles on the wall may be an alternative.

 

It may also be that small panels would help significantly - canvases not framed pictures, or a different finish in the window reveals.

 

Ferdinand

Edited May 4, 2017 by Ferdinand

[ragg987]

7 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Sound reducing paints are like this one:

https://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/coat-of-silence/coat-of-silence.html

That seems geared towards reducing noise transmission to the adjacent room, so would not tacklr reduce echo.

 

There are 2 approaches to reducing echo - absorb the sound before it reflects off a hard surface (curtains, sofas, carpets, soft wall hangings) or diffuse the sound so reflection is not so directional (hard furniture, books in shelves, wall panels).

 

In a domestic environment and assuming you wish to day-to-day echo, furnishing the room will take care of it. If looking at audio-listening rooms then you have a bigger job on your hands.

[AliG]

I googled that paint and found a large thread where people were arguing it was a scam and the company wouldn't provide much in the way of verifiable data.

 

I have been looking into this because we have a cinema room today and in the new house. I asked the installer about it as sometimes notice the dialogue is a bit muffled and he suggested that we had a company do an analysis of the new room to suggest solutions likely involving sound deadening panels.

 

I had indeed thought that we might try some kind of flock wallpaper, but the reading I have done suggests that the material requires sufficient weight to actually absorb the sound.

 

I note that the sound absorbing paint is around 3mm thick which is way thicker than normal paint so it will have some small effect, there is some data on the website suggesting a 2dB improvement, but it is unlikely that lightweight solutions can make a big difference.

[Ferdinand]

Fair comments - that was just a quick net search.

[Nickfromwales]

43 minutes ago, AliG said:

 

Sound dampening needs weigh

 

Each end of the audible spectrum needs addressing separately. High end, light angular and absorbing material, and for low end it's more dense material like rubber matting ( recycled car tyres iirc ) / heavy carpet etc. 

Echos tend to be from upper end of the spectrum so best to decide what the offending sounds will be before selecting and integrating any purposeful solution.   

[Nickfromwales]

A huge generator unit I've just seen was wall / ceilings / floors covered in different sizes and angles of lightweight foam triangles. Made it near silent so the weight argument isnt necessarily correct.  

[AliG]

4 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

A huge generator unit I've just seen was wall / ceilings / floors covered in different sizes and angles of lightweight foam triangles. Made it near silent so the weight argument isnt necessarily correct.  

 

You're right Nick. I wasn't really clear. Thickness makes a big difference as well as density and how porous a material is. Maybe substance is a better word.

 

Paint/wallpaper has neither weight nor thickness. It just cannot absorb sound. Also a heavy but solid material like a brick wall will not help with echos, although it would help sound transmission.

 

So foam works due to its thickness and being porous. The panels that people put on walls are usually foam covered in material. So it is a lot heavier than just thin material but also a lot thicker. However, it is not heavy per se.

 

There is lots of good info here and links to specifics on curtains, wall panels etc as well as how to make them yourself.

 

http://acousticsfreq.com/complete-home-theater-acoustics-tutorial/

 

As @Nickfromwales says denser material is more needed for lower frequency sounds and echo may be higher frequency and easier to deal with.

 

Even plasterboard helps to reduce echos as it will absorb sound to some extent. The worst materials in a domestic house are probably glass and tiles as they are very bad for reflecting sound, hence the only place I really notice it in our house is bathrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bitpipe]

There you go that's your interior design sorted then.

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Bitpipe

[ragg987]

1 hour ago, Bitpipe said:

There you go that's your interior design sorted then.

 

 

 

Pardon - can you speak up, can't hear a word...

[Tennentslager]

When my oldest was a toddler the medics thought he was deaf so we went to the audiology suite at the sick kids hospital. A normal looking room but accessed through a huge 10" thick door...think sci-fi film airlock.

They told me it was completely separate from the main hospital other than the access corridor and even had it's own foundations.

When the door was closed it was an eerie experience...complete and total silence. It's not long before you can hear your own breathing.

It's used to test hearing in little people with all sorts of top end speakers and electronics. When you come back out into the real world it's nice to reclimatise to background noise?

Oh and he doesn't have a hearing impairment, was something else.

[Barney12]

3 minutes ago, Tennentslager said:

When my oldest was a toddler the medics thought he was deaf so we went to the audiology suite at the sick kids hospital. A normal looking room but accessed through a huge 10" thick door...think sci-fi film airlock.

They told me it was completely separate from the main hospital other than the access corridor and even had it's own foundations.

When the door was closed it was an eerie experience...complete and total silence. It's not long before you can hear your own breathing.

It's used to test hearing in little people with all sorts of top end speakers and electronics. When you come back out into the real world it's nice to reclimatise to background noise?

Oh and he doesn't have a hearing impairment, was something else.

 

As someone who has had countless ear operations and partial hearing loss I've spent plenty of time in audiology suites.

As you say, eeriely quiet, even for a deaf bugger like me . 

 

Ref the hearing your breathing; again true. The worst thing is when you are going through a full hearing test you are concentrating so hard that you almost forge to breathe! Apparently it's not uncommon for people to gasp as they catch their breath back! 

 

The definition of complete hell; an audiologist that had garlic for tea. The air is far too still and they're right up close  

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

6 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

There you go that's your interior design sorted then.

 

 

 

That's nigh on what that genny locker looked like, just far less uniformity . 

I'm still tempted ( now it's minus it's genny ) to go nick the lining for the kids rooms 

[readiescards]

Thanks for all the input, I'll skip the special paint and look to get some canvas paintings or something on the walls once we are in. 

 

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

That's nigh on what that genny locker looked like, just far less uniformity . 

I'm still tempted ( now it's minus it's genny ) to go nick the lining for the kids rooms 

 

Great idea I'll move the genny from the garage into the living room and then surround it in all the Icynene spray foam off-cuts I have!

[Nickfromwales]

And the £24k you saved can go towards the divorce