How Can I Soundproof My Ceiling Cheaply?
Updated
The cheapest way to soundproof a ceiling is to seal it: caulk the perimeter and close up the recessed lights, because one unsealed 1/8 in. gap 1 ft long dropped a partition from STC 46 to 36 in PABCO's Sound Design Guide (opens in a new tab). PABCO calls recessed lights "large open holes in the ceiling" and recommends boxing them in.
Start with the cheapest fix and work down the list. Stop once the noise is something you can live with:
- Seal the ceiling: acoustical sealant around the perimeter and around every light, vent and fixture.
- Soften the floor above: for footsteps, ask upstairs about rugs with pads. On the same joist floor in Rockwool's tests (opens in a new tab), carpet and pad rated IIC 73 against 54 for engineered hardwood.
- Insulate joist bays you can reach, from an attic or unfinished basement. Weyerhaeuser (opens in a new tab) puts the gain at about 5 STC for voices and nothing for footsteps.
- Add resilient channel only if the ceiling drywall is coming down anyway. Weyerhaeuser credits it with about 10 points of both STC and IIC.
Watch out: If a screw reaches a joist, it shorts out the resilient channel, and that can cut STC by as much as 20%, per Weyerhaeuser. PABCO also says failures are common when the channel goes up upside down.
Panels, foam tiles and blankets on the ceiling are cheap, but all they cut is echo, as do soundproof panels work on ceilings explains. The echo options are in the soundproof ceiling panels guide, and you'll find more low-cost answers in the soundproof panels guide and soundproof panels FAQ.