Metal garage sound control/dampening

stinkbomb

stinkbomb

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Location
Rougemont, NC
So I have a 20x30 metal, carport style, garage, 8' walls, 12' peak. Picture for reference.
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It's loud as shit inside and I would like to mainly muffle the noise generated inside, not soundproof it. Aside from the obvious, have it sprayed with spray foam insulation, which is pretty damn pricey. A DIY kit will cost $1,200-2,500 and I got quoted $5,350 from a local spray foamer. What are my other options?

I picked up a few rolls of Peel and Seal, it's a roof repair tape, a lot of car audio guys use the shit out of it, since it's basically Dynomat, at literally a fraction of the price. It comes in 33.5' rolls, 6" wide, $16 a roll at Lowe's. I figured a few strips of it up the walls and across the roof should help the reverberation and help contain SOME noise. But I think the results will be rather pathetic and pretty much a waste of time and money. My take was, if it doesn't work, whatever, I can spray foam over it, since it's only 3/32" thick.

I don't really want to sheathe the inside with osb either, since the posts are 54" apart, the amount of scrap and cutting will just waste my time and money.

There has to be another viable option.

Also, anyone do or know anyone that does spray foaming around the RDU area?
 
I can tell you what we did at my FIL's ship which is identical style only bigger.
It was his idea and I provided labor only, doubt I would have done it, but that said it works remarkably well for noise reduction.

We lined the entire thing in "blue board" the insulation board. We attached it by running 1x4 furring strips across the front and screwing into the studs.The foam board cuts with a razor easily enough and there was minimal waste. We did his entire 100 x 40 x 18 in an easy weekend with 2 60 year olds and two mid 30s guys with a couple teenagers (12) being gophers and handing stuff.
 
4x10 sheetrock? You would be cutting 1' off each sheet. It wouldnt give you any strength to hang stuff on the walls though. Maybe a building supplier could order some 5x8 OSB and run it vertically? Still gotta cut each sheet lenthwise though.

I used 4x8 T&G subfloor on my shop, but I ordered the shop specifically with 4' on center spacing for the posts. On my back wall, I did have to use 2x4s where the boards met because it wasnt 4' center. I love my OSB walls.


INSIDE1.jpg
 
Thinking about my back wall...

What if you went with 4x8 T&G laid horizontally with the top row offset by 4'. Cut some 2x4s 54" to run vertically on the seams. The T&G should keep it pretty sturdy with the 2x4s screwed to the back of the ends of the sheets to keep them on plane. The 2x4s would be long enough to catch the next row with a couple screws.

Keep the sheets full length and dont worry about cutting them to land on a post.

People smarter than me, what are your thoughts?
 
sgtbriangreen said:
Thinking about my back wall...

What if you went with 4x8 T&G laid horizontally with the top row offset by 4'. Cut some 2x4s 54" to run vertically on the seams. The T&G should keep it pretty sturdy with the 2x4s screwed to the back of the ends of the sheets to keep them on plane. The 2x4s would be long enough to catch the next row with a couple screws.

Keep the sheets full length and dont worry about cutting them to land on a post.

People smarter than me, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

Why did I not think of this. Even if there were two 2x's between my vertical posts, that would be fine...
 
The Peel and Seal will help a bit, as it's the same type of mass damping principle that Dynamat uses. You're just making the panel heavier to change the resonant frequency. Put the strips in the middle of the unsupported panel span. You would want enough to run a strip all the way up the panels between every framing member, which is going to add up fast.
That will only help with panel resonance, and not as much with purely reflected noise from the hard surfaces though, which is why you need something to absorb as well (or instead). The reflected noise is the much bigger problem.

Anything softer and more flexible than the steel panels is going to muffle the sound a bit. Concrete for the floor and drywall on the walls isn't going to help things very much. Nice, unsupported wood will work decent (you've got wide center-to-center spacing) although I wouldn't get anything super thick because that will start to crank the level of reflection back up.

And yes, you should be wearing ear plugs if it's that bad. Save your ears now, you'll thank yourself later.
 
What about sparks from cutting and welding?
That blue board stuff is somewhat flammable if I remember correctly.

If you want to sheath with a fire retardant plywood, let me know and I'll make a phone call for ya
 
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Not sure about that JT, you'd be the expert. But....ive used a chop saw and threw sparks into DILs walls a few times and no issues. Not to say next time wont bring the suck...
But if you insist.... perforated aluminum or steel and fiberglass batting.

I can turn a 106dB machine into a 62 dB machine with it..
 
The blue board isn't that flammable we cut it with hot knifes at work. But I'm with Ron I wouldn't throw sparks and whatever else onto it and trust it not to burn. I vote cheap bat insulation and 1/4" plywood
 
3M aerosol undercoating? Sprayed between posts to change resonance, surface hardness, and surface smoothness. Rough/porous surfaces reflect less sound, as would a rubberized surface. The weight would do about the same as dynamat also.
 
I wear earplugs all day, every day. The noise doesn't bother me, I'm trying to not draw any unwanted attention to my shop. It's visibly hidden by trees, just want to reduce the noise it produces when I work in it.

How about this stuff:

Radiant Barrier Insulation | LTH Steel Structures

Holding it to the walls and ceiling wild be interesting. Unless I used bands like in real steel buildings...
 
stinkbomb said:
I wear earplugs all day, every day. The noise doesn't bother me, I'm trying to not draw any unwanted attention to my shop. It's visibly hidden by trees, just want to reduce the noise it produces when I work in it.

How about this stuff:

Radiant Barrier Insulation | LTH Steel Structures

Holding it to the walls and ceiling wild be interesting. Unless I used bands like in real steel buildings...
Click to expand...

That's actually not bad, it's $2 per linear foot in 4 foot width, which is equiv to $16 for a 4x8 sheet of whatever wood product. I'm not sure how effective that will be with sound transmission though, because it's only 1/4 inch thick and is mostly a reflective heat barrier... I would talk to the company about that, because that would be an expensive gamble.

Now that you're talking about transmitting noise outside instead of reducing interior noise, that changes things.
 
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stinkbomb said:
Holding it to the walls and ceiling wild be interesting. Unless I used bands like in real steel buildings...
Click to expand...

A good, heavy double sided tape might work. May have to worry a little with condensation and the adhesion.

I think that would help the sound both inside and outside since it is a fairly soft material. It would also give you the benefit of insulation which would be real nice in the colder months.
 
Cover the outside in mud/clay? Not sure how practical that is, but it seems like a good idea.
 
Isn't sheetrock somewhat fire rated? Nothing about sheetrock actually "burns" but the paper coating. Seems they'd make something similar that was fire rated if it ain't, like one coated with something.

I covered my entire shop with used barn roofing tin. But I guess that doesn't do much for the "sound" issue.
 
There's fire rated sheetrock, yes. That's pretty standard for commercial building code. You can get FR (Type X) at Lowes or HD, likely only 5/8 because that's the common thickness. The fire rating is just extra additives and additional time before it loses structural strength and falls apart, at which point there's no barrier to prevent fire from spreading. I think regular FR (Type X) is 1 hour rated for fire in 5/8.

Type X does have extra sound damping properties, I can't remember if that's because of the additional thickness (5/8 instead of 1/2) or because of the glass fibers added to the gypsum... Probably both, but most likely just because of the extra thickness.

You most likely already have it in your house if you have an attached garage. It's likely on the garage side of the walls that are common to the house, I think it's been building code for a while.
 
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Even if it did fall apart during a fire in which you should be fully aware of before that time comes, what's to burn behind it if you just go with this "Type X" and nothing else? I'd even go cheap metal studs (I know they ain't THAT cheap but saying) hung horizontally between the ones you have now to attach the seams.
 
insulation and FR sheetrock's my suggestion

You'll be hating life with that peel & seal on a hot summer day.
 
Stuff, you need to fill the garage with more stuff. Stuff reflects soundwaves, and odd-shaped stuff bounces soundwaves all over the place. My garage used to be loud until I filled it with stuff. Now it is filled with so much stuff that I can no longer make noise in it and the noise problem is finally solved!

Seriously I like the T&G board with insulation behind it. It would help keep the temperatures more moderate inside as well as provide lots of space to hang things on.
 
Definitely insulate it and sheet it with some sort of OSB or something. You'll be glad you did! It helps kill sound, regulate temperature, and stiffens up the building quite a bit. Not to mention, all that condensation that will form on the inside of a bare metal building is really annoying when droplets keep hitting you in the back of the head or neck while you're trying to work!


There are 4 guys around here with the same style buildings and they all did blue foam and OSB. It looks much better inside, IMHO.
 
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