Soundproofing your Home office
Many of us now find ourselves working remotely from our usual workplace and are having to designate a room within the home as our ‘home office’.
However, having been used to ‘fit for purpose’ offices in commercial premises, many people are discovering that the home environment and all that comes with it, is not conducive to productive working. Two issues that are commonplace are poor home office soundproofing due to a lack of effective sound insulation. This leads to disturbance from within the home and from neighbouring dwellings, and excessive reverberation, caused by hard surface finishes within the domestic environment.
Sound Reduction Systems Ltd (SRS) have a range of sound insulation and sound absorption products that can be used to upgrade home office soundproofing, to create a more relaxing and productive environment.
Removing Unwanted Noise from your home office
Depending on the nature of your work, the location of your office and the construction of your property, a number of issues may present themselves.
You may find that you are disturbed by unwanted domestic noise from within your property. Children shouting, dogs barking, and noise from domestic appliances, such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners, are all common sources of domestic noise that can cause disturbance within the home office.
It may actually be the case that you are the person creating the disturbance. For example, if you are constantly participating in Zoom or Teams calls with colleagues or potential clients while other members of the household are looking to relax or trying to work themselves, then this can prove problematic.
Poor home office soundproofing also means poor speech privacy which can lead to issues with confidentiality if ones works is of a sensitive nature.
Avoiding excessive reverberation in your home office
Many purpose-built and makeshift home office arrangements fail to provide a suitable acoustic environment for working activities. Hard surface finishes within the room such as glass, ceramic tiles, and laminate flooring often lead to noisy, reverberant spaces. This means poor speech intelligibility communicating on the phone or when participating in Zoom/Teams meetings.
Reducing noise through walls and ceilings
Should an upgrade be required, SRS manufacture Maxiboard, an extremely high-performance and versatile acoustic building board designed to line ceilings and walls for soundproofing. We have a number of Maxiboard specifications that suit most commonly found wall and ceiling constructions and vastly reduce the transfer of noise into and out of the home office whilst minimising the loss of room space.
Further information can be found using the following links:
Maxiboard - Masonry walls (Soundproofing walls between you and your neighbours)
Maxiboard - Timber Stud (Soundproofing partition walls within your own property)
Maxiboard - Maxi 60 Ceiling (Soundproofing ceilings from directly beneath the joists)
Maxiboard - Maxi Dropped Ceiling (Soundproofing ceilings beneath the existing ceiling)
Noise through Floors
SRS produce a range of acoustic flooring systems. The two products best suited to use for home office soundproofing are Acoustilay and Maxideck.
Acoustilay - The original and best acoustic flooring underlay system. Easy to fit, flexible acoustic underlay system that can be installed directly beneath most floor finishes. 3 different grades of Acoustilay are available to deal with both impact noise (Footsteps etc) and airborne noise (TV, Music, Talking etc).
Maxideck - High Performance acoustic flooring system, predominately for the reduction of airborne noise (TV, Music, Talking etc). Maxideck can be installed directly under most floor finishes.
Excessive Reverberation
SRS manufacture Sonata - a range of decorative, fabric wrapped acoustic absorbers that soak up unwanted echo and forever improving speech intelligibility when on Zoom/Teams meeting and telephone calls.
Sonata panels can be wall or ceiling mounted, depending on which is most convenient, and in most cases are installed in a matter of minutes.
Sonata panels are available in a range of attractive fabric colours and we can even print art or photographs onto the panels to make them look like a canvas on your wall.
Expert Advice
SRS are Institute of Acoustic sponsor members and have qualified technical advisors on hand to assist. Whether it’s advice on the most appropriate system for your application or a question on how many Sonata panels are required for your home office, we’re happy to help. Contact us on 01204 380074 or send us an email at info@soundreduction.co.uk
