Soundproofing Your Home and Appliances: DIY Solutions for a Quieter Life

Looking for some peace and quiet? AppliancePartsPros.com can help! Today, we’ve got a whole guide worth of tips and ideas you can try to cut back on the amount of noise in your life. Whether you’re contending with noisy neighbors or clunky appliances, you’ll find an affordable trick to try below. 

Cheap And Easy Ways To Reduce Noise In Your Home

Want to cut down on noise without breaking the bank? These easy-to-implement tips will help you to muffle outside or interior noise.

1. Put your decor to practical use

It’s not just about making your home feel homier, all those knick-knacks and decorative touches serve a purpose, too.

• Sound is going to reverberate more in an empty room, so decorate! Get some comfortable furniture, wall hangings, and well-stocked shelves. This is your excuse to buy that incredibly over-the-top cat tower or oversized dog bed for your favorite companion.

• Hang curtains, blinds, or other window dressing. Heavier curtains, especially, can help reduce outside noise.

• Add rugs and rug pads to muffle footsteps. Area rugs are a great choice for this.

• Bare walls act as reflection points for sound in the room. For a more pleasant audio experience, make sure those walls are decorated. Quilts, tapestries, or a well-stocked bookshelf can effectively dampen sound.

• Acoustic foam panels are specifically designed to either block outside sound or absorb internal sound. It’s relatively easy to find acoustic foam panels in decorative styles or as backings to wall art.

• Upholstered furniture can offer a bit of sound dampening, too.

2. Make sure any cracks, gaps, or holes in walls, doors, and windows are sealed

This is a big one! Any gaps, no matter how small, are spaces that sound can pass through. Here are some specifics to account for:

• Make sure your doors and windows are closing properly. You may need to do some maintenance if they’re difficult to close.

• Doors and windows should have weatherstripping on all sides, and it should be in good shape.

• If there’s a significant gap at the bottom of your front door, install a door sweep or use a draft stopper.

• Seal up any holes or cracks in your walls, floor, or ceiling with appropriate putty or caulk.

• Make sure any vents, like your chimney or your dryer’s vent, are properly capped.

3. Adjust room layouts to manage how sound travels

Put walls, doors, and furniture between you and the sounds you want to hear less. For example:

• If speakers or a television are too loud, make sure they aren’t facing an open doorway and relocate them if they are.

• Divide a room with upholstered furniture or something tall and solid like a bookshelf or decorative partition.

• Install doors or hang a doorway curtain in doorless entries. Something that can easily be closed to muffle sound.

• Move the furniture you use to relax or have conversations a little further away from noisy electronics, appliances, or sidewalk-facing windows.

4. Add background noise

Yes, this is pretty much the opposite of reducing noise, but sometimes it can do the trick. Adding some soft music, a noise machine, or a fan to a room can temporarily help to drown out the sounds that you don’t want to hear at the moment, like a neighbor vacuuming next door or someone playing video games a bit too loud upstairs.

More Involved Methods To Soundproof Your Home

Above, we laid out some cheap and easy sound-reducing tasks that you can knock out in an afternoon. In this section, we’ll cover bigger, more expensive projects. These require a significant time and/or cost investment, and often assistance from a professional.

• Deal with your front door. A solid wood door or storm door will muffle sound better than a foam core door, a door with windows, or one with a mail slot. If outside noise is of particular concern for you, you can replace your current front door with something more solid to help cut back on sound getting in.

• Add insulating or transitional strips to interior doors. This can be especially effective when paired with a door sweep.

• Install storm windows. High-quality storm windows are very effective at blocking outdoor sound.

• A drop ceiling, or a ceiling reinforced with drywall (assuming your ceiling can support the added weight), can help to block sound.

• Make sure your insulation is in good shape. Fiberglass or acoustic insulation in walls can help cut down on sound.

How To Deal With A Noisy Appliance

Now that you’ve addressed the issues with your home, let’s take a look at how to cut back on noise at the source – specifically, loud appliances.

1. Rule out any potential mechanical issues.

Some appliances, like high-powered blenders, are just naturally noisy. You can take steps to mitigate those annoyances, but before you do, consider that excessive noise is often a sign that an appliance is not working as it should. The best way to reduce this sort of noise pollution, then, is to fix the problem.

How do you know if a noise is abnormal? It depends on the appliance, but generally, you shouldn’t be able to hear a running appliance from more than a couple of rooms away. Obviously, some countertop appliances like blenders and food processors flaunt this rule, but dishwashers, dryers, and refrigerators are all built to reduce excessive noise.

Keep your ears open for screeching, grinding, and clunking noises, too. Major appliances shouldn’t sound like construction equipment. If you’re concerned that the sounds your appliances are making could be faulty components, take a look at our tips for diagnosing appliance problems.

2. Relocation

If it’s an option, consider relocating particularly noisy appliances. Putting a few extra walls between you and your annoyance can only help reduce what reaches your ears.

• Pull your appliances away from walls. You don’t need to sit them in the middle of the room, but putting a bit of distance between a noisy appliance and the wall behind it can cut back on sound transfer.

• The natural vibration produced by a washer or dryer will be less noisy if those appliances are on the ground floor or in the basement.

• Many kitchens have small alcoves designed to hold refrigerators. Assuming your fridge can fit with an appropriate amount of clearance (at least 1.5” on each side), moving it to an alcove can help reduce noise.

3. Make sure your appliances are level

Most major appliances come with two to four leveling feet – adjustable legs that can be used to keep your appliance flat on uneven ground. An off kilter appliance will almost certainly be a noisy appliance, so grab your level and have a look at your appliance’s positioning. If it’s not level, you’ll need to adjust the feet, which can generally be done by turning them clockwise or counter clockwise.

4. Use deadening or anti-vibration mats

Placing your noisy appliance on a mat designed to reduce vibration can help mitigate how much noise reaches your ears from the next room over. Be sure to utilize mats designed for appliances, specifically. An inappropriate material could actually damage your appliance by causing overheating.

5. Soundproof the area around the appliance

You shouldn’t use soundproofing materials on the appliance itself, as this can cause overheating. Instead, use soundproofing material on the wall behind it. Just make sure you’re also providing a bit of extra clearance to avoid overheating – for most appliances, you still want space for airflow at the back and on the sides.

A Few Specific Tips

Now, let’s get specific. Here are a few things you can try to reduce noise in your major appliances:

• Is your refrigerator running? Dusty, grimy condenser coils are insulated condenser coils, meaning your refrigerator must work longer and harder to achieve the same amount of cooling. Try cleaning the condenser coils on the back of the appliance. You can use a specialized appliance brush to make the job easier. If you keep the coils clean, your refrigerator might run a bit more quietly, and you’ll probably save some money on your electrical bills!

• Don’t overload your washer or dryer. More laundry in the drum means more noise. It also taxes your appliances, putting unnecessary strain on the smaller components that can get noisy as they start to wear out.

• Before loading clothes into your washer or dryer, make sure to check pockets for things like keys or change.

• If your dishwasher has been running loud, check the basin and clear it out. There may be something large, like a bone, stuck in the chopper or filter that is causing unusual or excessive noise.

• Dealing with noisy plumbing? Make sure your flexible water supply lines aren’t kinked. This can cause a lot of noise as water passes through.

• Some blenders are so loud they feel like they might violate an excessive noise ordinance. You can try to reduce the assault on your eardrums by running your blender away from walls or corners – like in the middle of a counter or table.

• Use tabletop appliances like blenders, mixers, and food processors on stable, level surfaces only. Opt for a countertop over a table, if you can.

Wrapping Up

Follow the tips we’ve laid out here, and you’ll find your home a bit more peaceful. Want more help with weird noises coming from your appliances, why not check out the other guides on our blog? We’ve got tons of troubleshooting tutorials to help you pinpoint  (and fix) sound issues with all major appliances, and if you find a part that needs to be replaced, AppliancePartsPros.com has you covered there, too! Our friendly staff is happy to help you fix those issues, and our genuine OEM parts can reach your door in as little as two days.