I swear the loud noise from my washing machine drives me nuts than my next door college kid playing loud music from his home theater. See how I solved the problem here
Unlike a loud/noisy neighbor- where you can always move to a quieter neighborhood- with a washing machine– it’s either you find ways to soundproof the laundry room or sound dampen the washing machine or you live through the noise.
I know the pain you’re going through right now- that why I decided to craft this article to help you understand the different techniques you can always implement and sound insulate washing machine.
Washing Machine Sound Absorber
The very first step I undertook was buying washing machine pads. I bought these anti-vibration pads on Amazon (Check them out). I would recommend you get two sets (they are quite inexpensive). One should be for the dryer and the other one for the washer.
Once you get them (I suppose the next day-If you order them today), you’ll need to fit the under the feet of both the dryer and the washer. This should take you less than 5 minutes.
However, if you don’t want to spend any money- I would recommend placing old rags beneath the dryer and the washer. But remember they won’t be as effective as anti-vibration pads.
Soundproof Laundry Room Door
Now that you have fixed the noise problem from your washing machine, next it o focus on the laundry room door.
In this case, I would recommend you replace your old hollow door with a new soundproof model. You can hire a professional or either DIY with the help of some nice YouTube tutorials. I’ve learnt so much thanks to YouTube.
Soundproofing the door will fix the problem for good. However it’s important to note that you will incur more expenses. But if you find this fix quite expensive, there are other DIY fixes you can apply using these inexpensive sound dampening materials.
Cheap ways to soundproof a door
If replacing the laundry room door sounds expensive to you, then I would recommend below hacks. They are effective and solved my noise problem just fine.
a) Cover the door sweep
Regardless of the type of door you have installed, there’s always a space between the door and the floor that allows sound to pass through to other rooms easily.
Now before you proceed, first go and check how the door hugs the ground. If the door sweep gap is big, I would recommend you to get this simple door sweep and place it under the door.
Now when buying a door sweep, please don’t go for ones you have to screw on the door- instead I would suggest ones with self-adhesive tapes for they are easier and practical to use. Either way, make sure the door sweep is covered. Check these door sweeps I bought to deal with my laundry problem
b) Consider a soundproof door blanket
Now you might want to go a step further if you feel that the door swivel and the washing machine pads aren’t doing a good job so far.
Consider using these soundproof door blankets and hang them on your laundry room door.
They are pretty cheap and made of thick sound dampening materials that block out the noise from your washing machine and you’ll only need less than 5 minutes to have them installed.
Cheap ways to soundproof a wall
You can also go an extra mile and soundproof the laundry walls. You can implement this especially if the room next to the laundry room is your bedroom or movie room. You can get cheap materials for sound insulating the walls.
You can read this article on how to soundproof a bathroom (Contains info on sound dampening the walls)
- You can seal the cracks using green glue sealant (Use this glue for best results)
- You can add layers of drywall to the existing walls
How to soundproof a floor cheap
While the washing machine pads will significantly reduce impact noise-impact noise when an object makes an impact on a building.
Machine vibrations are transferred to the floor and subsequently sent to other rooms in your house. Impact noise causes all those vibrations you feel when the dishwasher or the dry is turned on.
Conclusion:
There you have it folks, ways to soundproof laundry room. Have you implemented any of the tips above? Which one do you think you’ll implement right away? Please let me know in the comment section down below. If you have any questions or suggestion- let me know as well.