June 22, 2025 • 31 mins
In Hour 3, Dean continues breaking down the science of soundproofing and how to create a more peaceful living space. He explains the concept of decoupling walls to interrupt the transfer of sound energy, and how techniques like resilient channels, staggered studs, and floating walls can dramatically reduce noise. Dean also walks through the roles of damping and absorption — from mass-loaded vinyl to acoustic panels — and discusses when it's worth investing in high-end materials versus simple insulation. Whether it’s footsteps from upstairs or traffic noise outside, Dean offers strategic solutions to restore calm and quiet at home.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
did you know that this very program is also the
House Whisper podcast. That's right, we have a podcast. We
are the podcast. Every time we are done with one
of our live broadcasts, it is converted into podcast forms,
(00:23):
So if you've missed any part of the show, you
can go back and listen again and again and again
anytime you want, wherever you want, however you want. The
podcast is there. And where is that podcast found? Everywhere?
I mean literally everywhere. Of course, you can listen to
it on the free iHeartRadio app, but if you love
Apple podcasts, we're there. If you love Spotify, we're there
(00:44):
wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Just to go
to the search window and put in Home with Dean Sharp,
or you can put in Dean Sharp, or you can
put in the House Whisper. I guarantee you we're coming
up hundreds of episodes all waiting there for you that
you can listen to on demand anytime. It is truly
truly a home improvement reference library at your fingertips. And
(01:08):
if you're thinking, hey, this is all great, Dean, I
am inspired, I'm informed. But what I really need is
you and Tina standing in our house staring at the
problem with us. Well, you can do that too. You
can book an in home design consult with me and
the tea. Just go to house whisperer dot Design. All right,
we're going to return to our conversation on controlling sound. However,
(01:30):
I am going to finish Wendy's question. Wendy had a
specific concern about as green as possible hardwood flooring, and
I explain some things about hardwood flooring versus old school
versus engineered flooring, and I understand there is a you know,
have no doubt that modern engineered hardwood flooring is the
(01:52):
best hardwood flooring ever in the history of mankind. Just
know that, all right, the ware layers excellent, The base
and the structure underneath the best it's ever been. Yes,
way better, you old schoolers, way better as far as
a performing product than solid oak or maple or whatever
(02:13):
have you. Three quarter inch solid oak or maple floors. Okay, period.
The end, there there is no competition between the two
because of the way that wood interacts with moisture. The
end However, there is always a concern with some people
of the adhesives that are put together in order to
(02:34):
form the plywood layers and so on. And Wendy had
brought up one specific product, and I've got to say,
I have not used this product yet for a client
in a house. I know of it. I've heard things.
I've heard good things and I've heard not so great
things about the Casablanca collection by Alston Incorporated. They've come
(02:58):
up with they what they call an an innovative revolutionary
hardwood hybrid combination. It's a two ply engine two ply floor. Okay,
and here I was saying, you want nine to eleven
plies underneath that to wear layer. They basically have the
war layer and wood underneath it. How do they do
it well, They basically build the bottom structure of the
(03:21):
plank like a cabinet door. Essentially, there's a tongue in
groove rail underneath and filler wood in between. And I
can see how that would lend a certain amount of
stability to the product. However, it is difficult for me
understanding that structure. Two, It's difficult for me to suggest
(03:44):
that it is as stable as a multiply plywood floor.
Just from the pure physics of it, I don't think
it's true. I don't think it's as stable as a
multiply plywood floor. However, the advantage there being they say
that they use of completely formaldehyde free adhesives and zero
VOC materials, making it a top eco friendly green product,
(04:08):
and that I believe. I believe that's the case. However,
they are using a lot of solid wood underneath that,
So there are different ways of evaluating green. If it
comes down to chemicals and chemical off gassing, if that
is where your definition for whatever reason of green is,
then this would be near the top of a list.
(04:30):
My definition of green extends to the entire manufacturing process,
including how many trees and what kind of would it
takes to produce any particular product, and that would put
this kind of in the middle of that list. And
because there are multi layer plywoods that are also use
(04:51):
low formaldehyde or zero formaldehyde and zero VOC materials, by
the way, so that there it is just to keep
my promise to Windy about that. By the way, anybody
who is interested in finding those kinds of low off
gasing products for them, here's a website that I recommend
(05:11):
it's a great starting point. My chemical free house, My
chemical freehouse dot net. Go to my Chemical freehouse dot net.
You'll find every classification of flooring material there and you'll
get some input from them and some suggestions as to
what's out there, what's available, and what to be looking for.
So there you go. All right, Hopefully that satisfied that
(05:35):
question in the limited amount of time that I had.
Oh what are you doing? Oh? I see Keena's like,
all of a sudden behind me. I'm like, what do
you behind me for? She's watering Bob. Bob is our
official in Bob is the name of our in studio plant.
And now I can hear him drinking. He's very happy
that you're watering him. All right, let's get back to
the conversation of controlling sound in your home.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
If you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand
from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's not an easy thing to do. Sound gets in
and there's a lot of noise out there in the
world these days. And I'm not just talking metaphorically, I
mean literally, there's just a lot of noise in the world,
and we need to get control of it because it's
no longer in our ignorance. Noise is no longer just
a subjective thing. It is something that physically affects us
(06:27):
in negative ways. We know this now, and that's why
I'm helping you get control of it. Now. We've talked
about soundproofing. Here are a couple other insulation layers, and
it's all a layering game. We've talked about mineral wool.
We've talked about denim insulation. We've talked about open and
closed cell foam insulation. Open cell foam when it comes
(06:47):
to sound insulation does better than closed cell foam, and
the opposite is true when it comes to energy. When
it comes with energy. When it comes to thermal energy,
closed cell foam does a better job per inch of
thickness than open cell phone when it comes to resisting
heat or cooling. But the open cells, those air pockets
(07:10):
inside open cell phone does a better job with sound.
We talked about mass loaded vinyl. It's a great product.
It's expensive, but it's a great product, especially when space
to expand and thicken a wall is limited. But it's
not a miracle product, even though it's displayed that way.
Here are other simple changes inside the house when it
comes to insulating solid core doors on the inside of
(07:35):
your house. Get rid of those hollow core builder graye
doors that they put in and put in solid doors.
Solid doors have mass. Mass is an insulator. Solid core
doors will make rooms quieter. Dual glazed windows, it should
go without saying. Most of us have them, now some
(07:55):
of us don't. Still, dual glazed windows two windows with
a gaseous gap in between is an insulating pocket. Now,
it's not as good as the wall next to it.
It never will be. Well, I shouldn't say it never
will be, because you know science. But right now, even
the most expensive dual glaze window that you can get,
(08:18):
the most high tech one, is not equivalent in our
value or sound control to the solid wall next to it.
But they help. They help a lot. Because sound energy
having to move through two panes of glass with a
little bit of a disruptive air in between, and by
the way, it's not air inside, it's ar gone gas
(08:38):
in between those two clanes panes of glass, it has
to work harder to get through, which means by the
time it gets the inside, it is significantly weakened in
its strength. Because sound is an energy game. Just remember
that dual glazed windows, a double layered dry wall in
a house. If we're really looking to quiet a room down,
(09:00):
and we're going to set aside budget to do it,
then we can without having to build a separate wall
inside a wall, which is literally recording studio kind of moves.
Double layered drywall, another layer of drywall with decoupling kulk
in between decoupling calk. We'll talk about that in a bit,
(09:21):
but it is a specialized kind of calc in which
we don't screw the last layer of drywall on. We
glue it on with a layer of calk that itself
becomes a vibration dampener in between the layers of drywall,
and then outside thick tree cover. Thick tree canopies doesn't
(09:42):
sound proof a yard, but what it does sound Having
to move through all of those leaves, all around all
of those branches, it gets diffused and so it can
definitely lessen the sound. There are sound blocks that can
be made out of trees. Yet another argument for Dean
to tell you to plant trees in your yard you
(10:03):
want a quieter yard of And we'll come back to
trees when it comes to making the right kind of
sound in a yard. But if you want to quiet
noise tree canopies, big thing, block walls better than wood fences. Obviously,
the sound has a harder time getting through a block
wall than a wood fence. But I don't make a
(10:24):
big issue of you know, in order to quiet your
yard down, you need to surround it with block walls.
Because most of us don't have the right the allowance
from the from the city to actually build an eight
or a ten foot tall block wall around our backyard.
There are there are height restrictions to block walls, and
if you if you're zoning in your area only allows
(10:46):
you to build a six foot tall block wall. Remember
what I said about air, air goes right over the top,
and so the difference in cost of your block wall
to your wood fence. Believe me, you're not going to
notice that big of a difference in sound deadening. However,
just saying block walls do a better job of insulating
you from sound waves than wood fences. The end air
(11:10):
ceiling when it comes to your house air ceiling. As
I've said, sound travels on air. When air gets inside,
then sound comes with it. Hence that whole mass loaded
vinyl demonstration that I told you about where they make
this cube out of mass loaded vinyl and they set
(11:31):
it over a speaker and it just goes silent. Well,
that's the real trick there is. Yes, mass loaded vinyl
is a great sound insulating product, but the real trick
is the fact that they've cut off all the airflow
from that speaker chamber out into the room where you are.
If we were to take the mass loaded vinyl cube
(11:52):
and if I was to drill a half inch hole,
just one hole in it, believe me, you would hear
what's going on inside there. It would be quieter, but
it wouldn't be that silent, dramatic thing. So what does
that tell you? That tells you that air leakage around
your house. You've got bad threshold underneath your front door.
(12:13):
Can you see daylight? Can you feel a draft coming
through the back patio door. Those aren't just air leaks.
Those are sound leaks into your house because with the
air comes the sound. So there are weather just basic
weather stripping. Improve the weather stripping around your doors and windows.
Acoustic culk Okay, that's a thing. You can use acoustic
(12:37):
culk to caulk around leaky windows, the edges of doors,
what have you. Just know, the more air that comes
into your house, the more sound that comes into your house.
That's just science. Okay, So now I want to cross
over and top that's insulating, insulating, and air ceiling. That's
what we've covered so far. Now I want to talk
(12:59):
about something else I had teased at the beginning of
the show, which is decoupling. And know that doesn't mean
you breaking up with your significant other. I mean, which,
by the way, it might make your house quieter, but
that's not the kind of sound reduction I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is breaking what we call bridges
(13:20):
and I'm using my air quotes here, the bridges that
conduct energy from one side of it to the other,
the bridges, and in technical sound isolation and attenuation and
insulation concerns, we call it decoupling, breaking the sound bridge.
If you remember that energy is what sound is, it's energy, okay, traveling.
(13:47):
Then energy travels through a medium, Okay, in order to
get from point A to point B. It travels through
a medium like, for instance, electricity in a wire, in
a copper wire, copper metal is a fantastic conductor of energy.
In other words, it carries energy straight on through it.
(14:07):
Rubber is a terrible conductor of energy, which is why
the insulation on the outside of an electrical wire is
a rubberized insulation, which means you can actually touch the
insulation when there's current running through the copper and not
get shocked, which means the energy doesn't travel through it. Okay,
you've follown me, all right. So when we come back,
(14:30):
we're going to talk about bridges, like a wire from
one side to another, from a switch to a light.
We're going to talk about things that bridge energy and
allow sound to get from one place to a next.
And there are things that we can look at, things
that we can do to decouple to basically break the bridge.
(14:51):
Imagine a drawbridge that goes up and all of a
sudden separates. Now the traffic, you know. We do that
so that a big ship can get under the bridge
right pass through, but while it's up, the traffic can't
go from one side to the other. We have decoupled
that bridge. We'll talk about that and the stuff in
your house that is actually bridging sound into a room
(15:13):
when we return.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI am six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Talking about that very very most special place in your life,
your house, which I hope is slowly but surely becoming
your home. The difference between the two you, how much
of you is reflected in it, and how much of
you it reflects back to you. That's what makes a
house truly a home, the life that you live in it.
(15:43):
And we're all about it. We're all about it from
the philosophical meaningful side, and of course from the design
and the construction side. And we're talking about reducing the
amount of noise and noise pollution that makes its way
into your house. So I want to talk about decoupling.
This is a term, it's a technical term, and it
means breaking a bridge of conductivity from one form of
(16:08):
energy crossing over from one place to another. Let me
ask you this, just to make the illustration as simple
as possible. Why can you connect two tin cans together
with a piece of string and pull that string tight
and make a actual, really functioning, rudimentary telephone out of it?
(16:30):
Why does that work? It's very simple. It's because the
metal of the tin cans is a very conductive material.
It allows energy to pass through it very easily. Sound
is energy, and the tight string carries with it, just
(16:50):
like a guitar string or a piano string carries with
it a bridge of energy of that sound energy out
of one can through the string and to the other.
And how does do kids who think that this is
a magical thing. What's the big mistake they make? They decide, oh,
let's make it go around a corner. So they pull
(17:12):
the string tight around a corner. But guess what the
corner is doing. It's decoupling, it is getting it. It's
not allowing the energy to pass around the corner because
the string isn't that good. It's not that good, so
it needs that vibration, and that dampens the vibration. Right.
So this is the kind of stuff we're talking about
when we're talking about breaking bridges and you're like, where
are these bridges, Dean, Well, they're all around you. Actually,
(17:36):
a bridge for sound energy is actually anything that is solid,
even wood, Okay, Like even the string carries vibration through it.
And even though wood is not a great conductor of
electrical energy, you know what, you can send vibrations through it, right,
And if you put your ear to it, to one
side of a two by four and I tap on
(17:56):
the other side with a hammer, you're going to hear
it right come through. So how do we break the
bridges down? Well, one thing that we talked about early
on was the idea of you could build a double wall,
one wall out here and then another let's say two
by four wall right next to it, not touching though
they can't touch. That air gap in between the two
(18:19):
is critical. Why because the vibration traveling through the one
wood wall has to not have an opportunity to jump
to the other one as easily. That's why we need
the air gap in between. And you think, well, I
don't have room in my house Dean to build double
walls everywhere because the rooms get really small. Absolutely, I
totally agree with you. Another way, another step in reducing
(18:43):
that is you could build what we call a staggered
stud wall. Imagine not a double two by four wall,
but a single two by six wall. You use a
two by six bottom plate and a two by six
top plate, but you use two by four studs. Stagger
one set of studs on one side, staggered with studs
(19:06):
on the other side. The studs aren't touching. Every other
stud is on one side of the wall or the other.
And what we've done is we've created a double wall
using one wall plate. Mm hmmm hmm. You see what's
going on there, all right, But yet there are other
ways of just keeping your normal walls, and that is
the drywall. The drywall that goes on the wall could
(19:28):
be set in a way that we call sound reducing
by using resilient channels, which we use metal horizontal channels
traveling across the studs from top to bottom at regular intervals,
and then we mount the drywall to those channels. Now,
what's the secret there. Those channels have little rubber isolating
(19:49):
gaskets so that when the sound hits the drywall number one,
it's not directly attached to the wood stud so it
doesn't transfer the vibration straight through. It does transfer the
vibvibration into the metal channel, but the metal channel has
little rubber bumpers for lack of a less more technical term,
little rubber bumpers that dampen the vibration as it moves
(20:11):
from the channel to the studs and so on. So
that's another way. What if we want to do that, well,
we put on a layer of drywall, maybe we use
quiet rock drywall. What is that? Uh huh? It is
sound reducing drywall, same thickness as regular drywall, comes in
five eighths and also half inch. But what it actually
is is like a a half inch drywall is two
(20:34):
quarter inch thick pieces of drywall that have been sandwiched
together with a Visco elastic polymer in between. What is
it like a vinyl rubberized gasket in between two layers
of drywall. So sound reducing drywall decouples the vibration moving
(20:55):
through the one quarter inch and then it gets to
that rubberized layer, and it that rubberized layer reduces the
amount of vibration that gets into the other layer, and
therefore it is sound reducing drywall. You could put two
layers of that on your wall. You could put two
layers of sound reducing drywall with stuck together with Visco
(21:17):
elastic caulking in between the two. You could put two
sound reducing drywall layers with metal a resilient channel and
the little rubber dampening things that I was just telling
you about. You see, and every time we do it,
every time we go a little further and a little
further and a little further, we are bridging. We're breaking
(21:41):
bridges that conduct energy. We're breaking the bridge. We're breaking
the bridge. We're making it harder and harder and harder
for the energy wave to make it through. And if
we are breaking up the ability of the energy wave
to bridge through a material, we are reducing the amount
of sound sound as energy that comes to the other side,
(22:01):
and therefore we're reducing sound. There it is, you understand,
sound reducing windows work the exact same way. A sound
reducing window is not a triple glazed window per se
in the traditional thermal sense, but it is in one
sense because it's a dual glazed window, but the outside
glass is actually two two thinner layers of glass with
(22:25):
one of those secret viscoelastic polymers a sandwiched between the two.
So they're doing what the dry wall that I was
just describing to you does. And as a result, Yeah,
there's a lot less sound transmission, not soundproof, just reduced
sound transmission. Okay, that's all the insulating and the air
(22:47):
ceiling and the decoupling. Okay, when we return, let's talk
about what we do with the sound that is with us.
Sound absorption inside a room is different than proofing of
the sound from getting in. What do we do with
those sound that's already inside a room, for a home
theater or for just an echoe room, how do we
(23:10):
keep it from sounding so weird and hollow and echoing
in here? And then let's talk about outside a little
bit sound masking all of that noise from town that's
making its way in. How can we let go of that.
We'll do all of that when we return, but first.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
All right, let's finish up our conversation on controlling sound.
We've talked about all the others. If you've missed any
part of the show, make sure you go back and
listen to the podcast, which you can do again and
again wherever your favorite podcasts are found. Simply do a
search for Home with Dean Sharp, or The House Whisper
or any of the above. You'll find us. We're there.
(23:57):
This entire topic will be there for you just minutes
after we go off the air. All right, sound absorption,
that's what we talk about when we're acoustically treating sound
inside a room, not soundproofing it from what's coming in.
But once the sound that's in there. This studio is
a great example of treating the room, because when there
(24:19):
are too many reflective surfaces in a room, what happens
is that energy wave which comes out, let's say, out
of my melodious throat, so clear and resonant, it bounces
off the wall directly across from me, and then the
ceiling and then the floor, and then all of these
things start bouncing into each other. And if we were
to look at that nice, clean, arcing energy wave, suddenly
(24:41):
we would find it's been fragmented and it's overlaid, and
it's very fuzzy, and the sound loses its quality. So
sound absorption in a room is very simple in one sense.
It's complex in another sense. Of your building a studio
specifically for recording or li but a normal room, it's
(25:03):
really about soft surfaces, non reflective furnishings. And if you
really need something like in a home theater, then you
add acoustic panels, meaning something that absorbs some that diffuse.
But essentially we're talking about filling up a house with
soft surfaces and non reflective furnishings. Why because the sound
(25:25):
waves hit those, you hit the sofa, and whereas when
the room was empty, it hit those hard reflective walls
and it bounced right back it hits the sofa. Some
of us is absorbed because the sofa is mass, and
some of it is diffused because the sofa is soft
and round. And that's how it works. When it comes
(25:46):
to outside. You can't get the outside noise of the
town from coming into your yard, no matter how hard
you try. Now you can put up nice big tree
canopies to diffuse it, but really the goal of outside
and how I approach this with clients is masking sound masking,
which means we take the sound of traffic and which
(26:09):
is coming over the top of the house and around
in the sides, and we put a water feature in
the middle of the yard. The water feature. It just
so happens that the sound of moving water are ninety
percent of the same frequencies as the sound of traffic.
And so what I've done is I've blended the two together.
And now I've given you a visual queue to look
(26:31):
at in the yard. You see the water running, and
so what does it tell your brain? Everything that you're
hearing in that frequency range is in fact the water
even though half of it might technically be the traffic,
but your brain interprets it as moving water. If you
get to see moving water. Therefore, your brain does not
(26:53):
react stressfully to that sound. It reacts by destressing. Isn't
that brilliant? That is some serious sound control magic. In
addition to that, you add wind chimes outdoor speakers to
control the music environment. Pastoral sounds like chickens and goats
and horses and cows and all of this. These are
(27:14):
non threatening, relaxing sounds. Remember I said at the very
beginning of the show soundproofing total silence not our goal anymore.
And this is something we've learned. I've talked about this before,
but I will say it again. We have learned that
absolute silence is not the least stressful amount of sound
(27:35):
in a life. In fact, there are studies that show
that people who sit in rooms with absolute silence in
other words, sound absorbing rooms completely soundproof people can only
hang in there for so long before they start going
a little bit, you know, nutty, and they got to
get out. You get in a room that quiet, you
start hearing the beating of your own heart, and that,
(27:57):
you know, can be interesting for a while. But for
most normal people it gets a little unnerving. So here's
the thing. Evolutionarily speaking, we've spent the last two million
years or so hanging outside, living in an outside environment,
and what's really programmed into our software is the fact
(28:19):
that when you wake up in the morning and you
walk outside, bird song in the air, the sound of
the wind moving through leaves, okay, and moving water, these
are all signals to you that all is well in
the world. Okay. Birds, you know, they don't give off
their position when there's danger nearby. If there's fire nearby,
(28:42):
they go quiet. If there are predators nearby, they go quiet.
So really, you can make the evolutionary argument that silence,
total silence is actually perceived by most human beings as
a threat state and a stressful state. What is the
most relaxing state open air, moving water, gentle breeze, and
(29:04):
bird song. And so for those of you who are
saying I'm frustrated because there's no way I'm gonna soundproof
my backyard, you don't have to plant some more trees,
break out the bird feeder, get a little fountain going,
sit out there, enjoy and watch your blood pressure drop.
Sound masking not soundproofing when it comes to the backyard.
(29:25):
All right, I am literally right at the edge of
our time today it has breezed by, as it always does.
I appreciate you so much for being with me. I
hope that this lesson on sound control for your home
is of great benefit to you. Don't forget. We are
doing special coverage of the situation in Iran and the
(29:47):
protests downtown starting in just a couple of minutes, and
we will be doing that throughout the afternoon. So if
you need to be updated on that, go nowhere. I'm
going to leave you with this quick thought today. One
of the most interesting parts of being perceived as an
expert or an authority on some subject is the influence
to give other people permission. I'm often told by our
(30:11):
design clients and our listeners how important it was for
them that I gave them permission for something, permission to
design your home to your life, or permission to be
bold or be brave or unique or be an individual.
And I know how important that is in my own life.
I live with somebody who every day gives me permission
to be fully, unapologetically me. Thank you, Tina, and also
(30:33):
I'm sorry for that the very fact that I'm taking
valuable radio time at the end of the show to
share personal thoughts and feelings is because years ago, my
brilliant program director and radio mentor gave me permission to
be one hundred percent me when I am spending time
with you. So getting permission from those that we love
(30:54):
or respect, or love and respect it can be life changing.
And I'm certainly not in charge of you or your home.
But if you're listening for permission, then let me give
it to you here. It is pursue your passion, discover
your joy, live your life on your terms. You do you,
(31:14):
and then get out there and get busy building yourself
a beautiful life. Guys, have a great, great rest of
your weekend and a great week lying ahead. I will
wave to you this week from the Eastern Sierras, and
we will see you right back here next weekend. This
(31:35):
has been Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper. Tune
into the live broadcast on KFI Am six forty every
Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and every
Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime
on demand on the iHeart Radio app.
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
did you know that this very program is also the
House Whisper podcast. That's right, we have a podcast. We
are the podcast. Every time we are done with one
of our live broadcasts, it is converted into podcast forms,
(00:23):
So if you've missed any part of the show, you
can go back and listen again and again and again
anytime you want, wherever you want, however you want. The
podcast is there. And where is that podcast found? Everywhere?
I mean literally everywhere. Of course, you can listen to
it on the free iHeartRadio app, but if you love
Apple podcasts, we're there. If you love Spotify, we're there
(00:44):
wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Just to go
to the search window and put in Home with Dean Sharp,
or you can put in Dean Sharp, or you can
put in the House Whisper. I guarantee you we're coming
up hundreds of episodes all waiting there for you that
you can listen to on demand anytime. It is truly
truly a home improvement reference library at your fingertips. And
(01:08):
if you're thinking, hey, this is all great, Dean, I
am inspired, I'm informed. But what I really need is
you and Tina standing in our house staring at the
problem with us. Well, you can do that too. You
can book an in home design consult with me and
the tea. Just go to house whisperer dot Design. All right,
we're going to return to our conversation on controlling sound. However,
(01:30):
I am going to finish Wendy's question. Wendy had a
specific concern about as green as possible hardwood flooring, and
I explain some things about hardwood flooring versus old school
versus engineered flooring, and I understand there is a you know,
have no doubt that modern engineered hardwood flooring is the
(01:52):
best hardwood flooring ever in the history of mankind. Just
know that, all right, the ware layers excellent, The base
and the structure underneath the best it's ever been. Yes,
way better, you old schoolers, way better as far as
a performing product than solid oak or maple or whatever
(02:13):
have you. Three quarter inch solid oak or maple floors. Okay, period.
The end, there there is no competition between the two
because of the way that wood interacts with moisture. The
end However, there is always a concern with some people
of the adhesives that are put together in order to
(02:34):
form the plywood layers and so on. And Wendy had
brought up one specific product, and I've got to say,
I have not used this product yet for a client
in a house. I know of it. I've heard things.
I've heard good things and I've heard not so great
things about the Casablanca collection by Alston Incorporated. They've come
(02:58):
up with they what they call an an innovative revolutionary
hardwood hybrid combination. It's a two ply engine two ply floor. Okay,
and here I was saying, you want nine to eleven
plies underneath that to wear layer. They basically have the
war layer and wood underneath it. How do they do
it well, They basically build the bottom structure of the
(03:21):
plank like a cabinet door. Essentially, there's a tongue in
groove rail underneath and filler wood in between. And I
can see how that would lend a certain amount of
stability to the product. However, it is difficult for me
understanding that structure. Two, It's difficult for me to suggest
(03:44):
that it is as stable as a multiply plywood floor.
Just from the pure physics of it, I don't think
it's true. I don't think it's as stable as a
multiply plywood floor. However, the advantage there being they say
that they use of completely formaldehyde free adhesives and zero
VOC materials, making it a top eco friendly green product,
(04:08):
and that I believe. I believe that's the case. However,
they are using a lot of solid wood underneath that,
So there are different ways of evaluating green. If it
comes down to chemicals and chemical off gassing, if that
is where your definition for whatever reason of green is,
then this would be near the top of a list.
(04:30):
My definition of green extends to the entire manufacturing process,
including how many trees and what kind of would it
takes to produce any particular product, and that would put
this kind of in the middle of that list. And
because there are multi layer plywoods that are also use
(04:51):
low formaldehyde or zero formaldehyde and zero VOC materials, by
the way, so that there it is just to keep
my promise to Windy about that. By the way, anybody
who is interested in finding those kinds of low off
gasing products for them, here's a website that I recommend
(05:11):
it's a great starting point. My chemical free house, My
chemical freehouse dot net. Go to my Chemical freehouse dot net.
You'll find every classification of flooring material there and you'll
get some input from them and some suggestions as to
what's out there, what's available, and what to be looking for.
So there you go. All right, Hopefully that satisfied that
(05:35):
question in the limited amount of time that I had.
Oh what are you doing? Oh? I see Keena's like,
all of a sudden behind me. I'm like, what do
you behind me for? She's watering Bob. Bob is our
official in Bob is the name of our in studio plant.
And now I can hear him drinking. He's very happy
that you're watering him. All right, let's get back to
the conversation of controlling sound in your home.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
If you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand
from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's not an easy thing to do. Sound gets in
and there's a lot of noise out there in the
world these days. And I'm not just talking metaphorically, I
mean literally, there's just a lot of noise in the world,
and we need to get control of it because it's
no longer in our ignorance. Noise is no longer just
a subjective thing. It is something that physically affects us
(06:27):
in negative ways. We know this now, and that's why
I'm helping you get control of it. Now. We've talked
about soundproofing. Here are a couple other insulation layers, and
it's all a layering game. We've talked about mineral wool.
We've talked about denim insulation. We've talked about open and
closed cell foam insulation. Open cell foam when it comes
(06:47):
to sound insulation does better than closed cell foam, and
the opposite is true when it comes to energy. When
it comes with energy. When it comes to thermal energy,
closed cell foam does a better job per inch of
thickness than open cell phone when it comes to resisting
heat or cooling. But the open cells, those air pockets
(07:10):
inside open cell phone does a better job with sound.
We talked about mass loaded vinyl. It's a great product.
It's expensive, but it's a great product, especially when space
to expand and thicken a wall is limited. But it's
not a miracle product, even though it's displayed that way.
Here are other simple changes inside the house when it
comes to insulating solid core doors on the inside of
(07:35):
your house. Get rid of those hollow core builder graye
doors that they put in and put in solid doors.
Solid doors have mass. Mass is an insulator. Solid core
doors will make rooms quieter. Dual glazed windows, it should
go without saying. Most of us have them, now some
(07:55):
of us don't. Still, dual glazed windows two windows with
a gaseous gap in between is an insulating pocket. Now,
it's not as good as the wall next to it.
It never will be. Well, I shouldn't say it never
will be, because you know science. But right now, even
the most expensive dual glaze window that you can get,
(08:18):
the most high tech one, is not equivalent in our
value or sound control to the solid wall next to it.
But they help. They help a lot. Because sound energy
having to move through two panes of glass with a
little bit of a disruptive air in between, and by
the way, it's not air inside, it's ar gone gas
(08:38):
in between those two clanes panes of glass, it has
to work harder to get through, which means by the
time it gets the inside, it is significantly weakened in
its strength. Because sound is an energy game. Just remember
that dual glazed windows, a double layered dry wall in
a house. If we're really looking to quiet a room down,
(09:00):
and we're going to set aside budget to do it,
then we can without having to build a separate wall
inside a wall, which is literally recording studio kind of moves.
Double layered drywall, another layer of drywall with decoupling kulk
in between decoupling calk. We'll talk about that in a bit,
(09:21):
but it is a specialized kind of calc in which
we don't screw the last layer of drywall on. We
glue it on with a layer of calk that itself
becomes a vibration dampener in between the layers of drywall,
and then outside thick tree cover. Thick tree canopies doesn't
(09:42):
sound proof a yard, but what it does sound Having
to move through all of those leaves, all around all
of those branches, it gets diffused and so it can
definitely lessen the sound. There are sound blocks that can
be made out of trees. Yet another argument for Dean
to tell you to plant trees in your yard you
(10:03):
want a quieter yard of And we'll come back to
trees when it comes to making the right kind of
sound in a yard. But if you want to quiet
noise tree canopies, big thing, block walls better than wood fences. Obviously,
the sound has a harder time getting through a block
wall than a wood fence. But I don't make a
(10:24):
big issue of you know, in order to quiet your
yard down, you need to surround it with block walls.
Because most of us don't have the right the allowance
from the from the city to actually build an eight
or a ten foot tall block wall around our backyard.
There are there are height restrictions to block walls, and
if you if you're zoning in your area only allows
(10:46):
you to build a six foot tall block wall. Remember
what I said about air, air goes right over the top,
and so the difference in cost of your block wall
to your wood fence. Believe me, you're not going to
notice that big of a difference in sound deadening. However,
just saying block walls do a better job of insulating
you from sound waves than wood fences. The end air
(11:10):
ceiling when it comes to your house air ceiling. As
I've said, sound travels on air. When air gets inside,
then sound comes with it. Hence that whole mass loaded
vinyl demonstration that I told you about where they make
this cube out of mass loaded vinyl and they set
(11:31):
it over a speaker and it just goes silent. Well,
that's the real trick there is. Yes, mass loaded vinyl
is a great sound insulating product, but the real trick
is the fact that they've cut off all the airflow
from that speaker chamber out into the room where you are.
If we were to take the mass loaded vinyl cube
(11:52):
and if I was to drill a half inch hole,
just one hole in it, believe me, you would hear
what's going on inside there. It would be quieter, but
it wouldn't be that silent, dramatic thing. So what does
that tell you? That tells you that air leakage around
your house. You've got bad threshold underneath your front door.
(12:13):
Can you see daylight? Can you feel a draft coming
through the back patio door. Those aren't just air leaks.
Those are sound leaks into your house because with the
air comes the sound. So there are weather just basic
weather stripping. Improve the weather stripping around your doors and windows.
Acoustic culk Okay, that's a thing. You can use acoustic
(12:37):
culk to caulk around leaky windows, the edges of doors,
what have you. Just know, the more air that comes
into your house, the more sound that comes into your house.
That's just science. Okay, So now I want to cross
over and top that's insulating, insulating, and air ceiling. That's
what we've covered so far. Now I want to talk
(12:59):
about something else I had teased at the beginning of
the show, which is decoupling. And know that doesn't mean
you breaking up with your significant other. I mean, which,
by the way, it might make your house quieter, but
that's not the kind of sound reduction I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is breaking what we call bridges
(13:20):
and I'm using my air quotes here, the bridges that
conduct energy from one side of it to the other,
the bridges, and in technical sound isolation and attenuation and
insulation concerns, we call it decoupling, breaking the sound bridge.
If you remember that energy is what sound is, it's energy, okay, traveling.
(13:47):
Then energy travels through a medium, Okay, in order to
get from point A to point B. It travels through
a medium like, for instance, electricity in a wire, in
a copper wire, copper metal is a fantastic conductor of energy.
In other words, it carries energy straight on through it.
(14:07):
Rubber is a terrible conductor of energy, which is why
the insulation on the outside of an electrical wire is
a rubberized insulation, which means you can actually touch the
insulation when there's current running through the copper and not
get shocked, which means the energy doesn't travel through it. Okay,
you've follown me, all right. So when we come back,
(14:30):
we're going to talk about bridges, like a wire from
one side to another, from a switch to a light.
We're going to talk about things that bridge energy and
allow sound to get from one place to a next.
And there are things that we can look at, things
that we can do to decouple to basically break the bridge.
(14:51):
Imagine a drawbridge that goes up and all of a
sudden separates. Now the traffic, you know. We do that
so that a big ship can get under the bridge
right pass through, but while it's up, the traffic can't
go from one side to the other. We have decoupled
that bridge. We'll talk about that and the stuff in
your house that is actually bridging sound into a room
(15:13):
when we return.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI am six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Talking about that very very most special place in your life,
your house, which I hope is slowly but surely becoming
your home. The difference between the two you, how much
of you is reflected in it, and how much of
you it reflects back to you. That's what makes a
house truly a home, the life that you live in it.
(15:43):
And we're all about it. We're all about it from
the philosophical meaningful side, and of course from the design
and the construction side. And we're talking about reducing the
amount of noise and noise pollution that makes its way
into your house. So I want to talk about decoupling.
This is a term, it's a technical term, and it
means breaking a bridge of conductivity from one form of
(16:08):
energy crossing over from one place to another. Let me
ask you this, just to make the illustration as simple
as possible. Why can you connect two tin cans together
with a piece of string and pull that string tight
and make a actual, really functioning, rudimentary telephone out of it?
(16:30):
Why does that work? It's very simple. It's because the
metal of the tin cans is a very conductive material.
It allows energy to pass through it very easily. Sound
is energy, and the tight string carries with it, just
(16:50):
like a guitar string or a piano string carries with
it a bridge of energy of that sound energy out
of one can through the string and to the other.
And how does do kids who think that this is
a magical thing. What's the big mistake they make? They decide, oh,
let's make it go around a corner. So they pull
(17:12):
the string tight around a corner. But guess what the
corner is doing. It's decoupling, it is getting it. It's
not allowing the energy to pass around the corner because
the string isn't that good. It's not that good, so
it needs that vibration, and that dampens the vibration. Right.
So this is the kind of stuff we're talking about
when we're talking about breaking bridges and you're like, where
are these bridges, Dean, Well, they're all around you. Actually,
(17:36):
a bridge for sound energy is actually anything that is solid,
even wood, Okay, Like even the string carries vibration through it.
And even though wood is not a great conductor of
electrical energy, you know what, you can send vibrations through it, right,
And if you put your ear to it, to one
side of a two by four and I tap on
(17:56):
the other side with a hammer, you're going to hear
it right come through. So how do we break the
bridges down? Well, one thing that we talked about early
on was the idea of you could build a double wall,
one wall out here and then another let's say two
by four wall right next to it, not touching though
they can't touch. That air gap in between the two
(18:19):
is critical. Why because the vibration traveling through the one
wood wall has to not have an opportunity to jump
to the other one as easily. That's why we need
the air gap in between. And you think, well, I
don't have room in my house Dean to build double
walls everywhere because the rooms get really small. Absolutely, I
totally agree with you. Another way, another step in reducing
(18:43):
that is you could build what we call a staggered
stud wall. Imagine not a double two by four wall,
but a single two by six wall. You use a
two by six bottom plate and a two by six
top plate, but you use two by four studs. Stagger
one set of studs on one side, staggered with studs
(19:06):
on the other side. The studs aren't touching. Every other
stud is on one side of the wall or the other.
And what we've done is we've created a double wall
using one wall plate. Mm hmmm hmm. You see what's
going on there, all right, But yet there are other
ways of just keeping your normal walls, and that is
the drywall. The drywall that goes on the wall could
(19:28):
be set in a way that we call sound reducing
by using resilient channels, which we use metal horizontal channels
traveling across the studs from top to bottom at regular intervals,
and then we mount the drywall to those channels. Now,
what's the secret there. Those channels have little rubber isolating
(19:49):
gaskets so that when the sound hits the drywall number one,
it's not directly attached to the wood stud so it
doesn't transfer the vibration straight through. It does transfer the
vibvibration into the metal channel, but the metal channel has
little rubber bumpers for lack of a less more technical term,
little rubber bumpers that dampen the vibration as it moves
(20:11):
from the channel to the studs and so on. So
that's another way. What if we want to do that, well,
we put on a layer of drywall, maybe we use
quiet rock drywall. What is that? Uh huh? It is
sound reducing drywall, same thickness as regular drywall, comes in
five eighths and also half inch. But what it actually
is is like a a half inch drywall is two
(20:34):
quarter inch thick pieces of drywall that have been sandwiched
together with a Visco elastic polymer in between. What is
it like a vinyl rubberized gasket in between two layers
of drywall. So sound reducing drywall decouples the vibration moving
(20:55):
through the one quarter inch and then it gets to
that rubberized layer, and it that rubberized layer reduces the
amount of vibration that gets into the other layer, and
therefore it is sound reducing drywall. You could put two
layers of that on your wall. You could put two
layers of sound reducing drywall with stuck together with Visco
(21:17):
elastic caulking in between the two. You could put two
sound reducing drywall layers with metal a resilient channel and
the little rubber dampening things that I was just telling
you about. You see, and every time we do it,
every time we go a little further and a little
further and a little further, we are bridging. We're breaking
(21:41):
bridges that conduct energy. We're breaking the bridge. We're breaking
the bridge. We're making it harder and harder and harder
for the energy wave to make it through. And if
we are breaking up the ability of the energy wave
to bridge through a material, we are reducing the amount
of sound sound as energy that comes to the other side,
(22:01):
and therefore we're reducing sound. There it is, you understand,
sound reducing windows work the exact same way. A sound
reducing window is not a triple glazed window per se
in the traditional thermal sense, but it is in one
sense because it's a dual glazed window, but the outside
glass is actually two two thinner layers of glass with
(22:25):
one of those secret viscoelastic polymers a sandwiched between the two.
So they're doing what the dry wall that I was
just describing to you does. And as a result, Yeah,
there's a lot less sound transmission, not soundproof, just reduced
sound transmission. Okay, that's all the insulating and the air
(22:47):
ceiling and the decoupling. Okay, when we return, let's talk
about what we do with the sound that is with us.
Sound absorption inside a room is different than proofing of
the sound from getting in. What do we do with
those sound that's already inside a room, for a home
theater or for just an echoe room, how do we
(23:10):
keep it from sounding so weird and hollow and echoing
in here? And then let's talk about outside a little
bit sound masking all of that noise from town that's
making its way in. How can we let go of that.
We'll do all of that when we return, but first.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
All right, let's finish up our conversation on controlling sound.
We've talked about all the others. If you've missed any
part of the show, make sure you go back and
listen to the podcast, which you can do again and
again wherever your favorite podcasts are found. Simply do a
search for Home with Dean Sharp, or The House Whisper
or any of the above. You'll find us. We're there.
(23:57):
This entire topic will be there for you just minutes
after we go off the air. All right, sound absorption,
that's what we talk about when we're acoustically treating sound
inside a room, not soundproofing it from what's coming in.
But once the sound that's in there. This studio is
a great example of treating the room, because when there
(24:19):
are too many reflective surfaces in a room, what happens
is that energy wave which comes out, let's say, out
of my melodious throat, so clear and resonant, it bounces
off the wall directly across from me, and then the
ceiling and then the floor, and then all of these
things start bouncing into each other. And if we were
to look at that nice, clean, arcing energy wave, suddenly
(24:41):
we would find it's been fragmented and it's overlaid, and
it's very fuzzy, and the sound loses its quality. So
sound absorption in a room is very simple in one sense.
It's complex in another sense. Of your building a studio
specifically for recording or li but a normal room, it's
(25:03):
really about soft surfaces, non reflective furnishings. And if you
really need something like in a home theater, then you
add acoustic panels, meaning something that absorbs some that diffuse.
But essentially we're talking about filling up a house with
soft surfaces and non reflective furnishings. Why because the sound
(25:25):
waves hit those, you hit the sofa, and whereas when
the room was empty, it hit those hard reflective walls
and it bounced right back it hits the sofa. Some
of us is absorbed because the sofa is mass, and
some of it is diffused because the sofa is soft
and round. And that's how it works. When it comes
(25:46):
to outside. You can't get the outside noise of the
town from coming into your yard, no matter how hard
you try. Now you can put up nice big tree
canopies to diffuse it, but really the goal of outside
and how I approach this with clients is masking sound masking,
which means we take the sound of traffic and which
(26:09):
is coming over the top of the house and around
in the sides, and we put a water feature in
the middle of the yard. The water feature. It just
so happens that the sound of moving water are ninety
percent of the same frequencies as the sound of traffic.
And so what I've done is I've blended the two together.
And now I've given you a visual queue to look
(26:31):
at in the yard. You see the water running, and
so what does it tell your brain? Everything that you're
hearing in that frequency range is in fact the water
even though half of it might technically be the traffic,
but your brain interprets it as moving water. If you
get to see moving water. Therefore, your brain does not
(26:53):
react stressfully to that sound. It reacts by destressing. Isn't
that brilliant? That is some serious sound control magic. In
addition to that, you add wind chimes outdoor speakers to
control the music environment. Pastoral sounds like chickens and goats
and horses and cows and all of this. These are
(27:14):
non threatening, relaxing sounds. Remember I said at the very
beginning of the show soundproofing total silence not our goal anymore.
And this is something we've learned. I've talked about this before,
but I will say it again. We have learned that
absolute silence is not the least stressful amount of sound
(27:35):
in a life. In fact, there are studies that show
that people who sit in rooms with absolute silence in
other words, sound absorbing rooms completely soundproof people can only
hang in there for so long before they start going
a little bit, you know, nutty, and they got to
get out. You get in a room that quiet, you
start hearing the beating of your own heart, and that,
(27:57):
you know, can be interesting for a while. But for
most normal people it gets a little unnerving. So here's
the thing. Evolutionarily speaking, we've spent the last two million
years or so hanging outside, living in an outside environment,
and what's really programmed into our software is the fact
(28:19):
that when you wake up in the morning and you
walk outside, bird song in the air, the sound of
the wind moving through leaves, okay, and moving water, these
are all signals to you that all is well in
the world. Okay. Birds, you know, they don't give off
their position when there's danger nearby. If there's fire nearby,
(28:42):
they go quiet. If there are predators nearby, they go quiet.
So really, you can make the evolutionary argument that silence,
total silence is actually perceived by most human beings as
a threat state and a stressful state. What is the
most relaxing state open air, moving water, gentle breeze, and
(29:04):
bird song. And so for those of you who are
saying I'm frustrated because there's no way I'm gonna soundproof
my backyard, you don't have to plant some more trees,
break out the bird feeder, get a little fountain going,
sit out there, enjoy and watch your blood pressure drop.
Sound masking not soundproofing when it comes to the backyard.
(29:25):
All right, I am literally right at the edge of
our time today it has breezed by, as it always does.
I appreciate you so much for being with me. I
hope that this lesson on sound control for your home
is of great benefit to you. Don't forget. We are
doing special coverage of the situation in Iran and the
(29:47):
protests downtown starting in just a couple of minutes, and
we will be doing that throughout the afternoon. So if
you need to be updated on that, go nowhere. I'm
going to leave you with this quick thought today. One
of the most interesting parts of being perceived as an
expert or an authority on some subject is the influence
to give other people permission. I'm often told by our
(30:11):
design clients and our listeners how important it was for
them that I gave them permission for something, permission to
design your home to your life, or permission to be
bold or be brave or unique or be an individual.
And I know how important that is in my own life.
I live with somebody who every day gives me permission
to be fully, unapologetically me. Thank you, Tina, and also
(30:33):
I'm sorry for that the very fact that I'm taking
valuable radio time at the end of the show to
share personal thoughts and feelings is because years ago, my
brilliant program director and radio mentor gave me permission to
be one hundred percent me when I am spending time
with you. So getting permission from those that we love
(30:54):
or respect, or love and respect it can be life changing.
And I'm certainly not in charge of you or your home.
But if you're listening for permission, then let me give
it to you here. It is pursue your passion, discover
your joy, live your life on your terms. You do you,
(31:14):
and then get out there and get busy building yourself
a beautiful life. Guys, have a great, great rest of
your weekend and a great week lying ahead. I will
wave to you this week from the Eastern Sierras, and
we will see you right back here next weekend. This
(31:35):
has been Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper. Tune
into the live broadcast on KFI Am six forty every
Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and every
Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime
on demand on the iHeart Radio app.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!