Need Help! Soundproofing a small space

[Springfield]

OK, here's the deal.

My wife and I bought an end unit townhouse in Springfield at the end of last month. We have two dogs. One of the two dogs does not bark, but howls (think coyote) rather loudly. The other dog will join in with the howling as best as he can as well. While we are gone, we keep them in a utility room in the basement. This is when they make 99% of the noise.

The house next door is for sale and when I came home from work the seller was there painting an upstairs bedroom and she met me outside to inform me that my dog is "awful". Now, I feel badly because (a) they will have trouble selling the house if there are vocally loud dogs next door and ( the new neighbors will be highly annoyed if we aren't home and the dogs are making noise.

We first tried methods to quiet the dogs while we are gone. Letting them run around and play outside for a period of time before we leave (not always possible). We've tried using a shock collar on the noisy dog. I haven't heard him scream so loudly in all of my life, I couldn't bear using that thing on him. We have an ultrasonic bark deterrent which we haven't used yet but I doubt it would work very well. So, exhausting all of our methods of making the dogs shut up when we aren't home, we have to accept that they will be noisy and will need to try and control their noise.

So, the room that they stay in while we are gone that needs to be soundproofed:

It is about 4 feet wide by about 12 feed deep. The ceiling is the bottom of the stairs leading downstairs and they are plywood. On the left is a concrete wall that adjoins the townhouse next door. On the right is framework with wood paneling that sides the den. The floor is concrete. All of these are rather hard materials and in the cases of the wood I suspect that noise transfers through it rather easily.

I've looked up soundproofing foams, things like that. Is there a cheap way to soundproof this space? Can anybody on ES help us out?

Thanks and Hail!

[Disco Dave]

You need to get a no-bark shock collar. I have one and it works great. Problem solved!!!

---------- Post added November-13th-2011 at 11:31 PM ----------

This is the one that I use.

http://ps.factoryoutletstore.com/details/43263/SBC-10R.html

Trust me it works great and it will train your dogs not to bark.

[hockeysc23]

No advice on the soundproofing sorry. Odds are good your dogs just have too much energy. More walking will probably exhaust them enough they would just sleep all day while you are gone. Do they have comfy beds or something in the room you keep them in?

Would maybe crating them in different parts of the house be another alternative in the short term? Do they howl at all when you are home? I used a spray bottle with a little vinegar mixed with water when my dog started barking at every falling leaf and it helped train her. As soon as she barked one little spray.

[Barney B]

I'd suggest looking for ways to make the dogs happier when you're gone, as opposed to soundproofing the house, but we know that's not always easy.

Unfortunately, neither is soundproofing. The key to containing sound isn't only to make sure none leaks out the cracks - since it can penetrate through solids - it's making sure it gets fully absorbed by the solid materials used to contain it.

This means heavy materials, and lots of them. Several layers of thick-ass drywall will often be called for (it's better to use ferring strips between layers, and stagger them so they're offset from the strips below) where the sound can easily get through, like paneling.

Not that you can't improvise. I once 'soundproofed' a basement for band practice with cheap materials like sandbags and discarded rolls of carpet - not perfect, but good enough, and so decorative. Again, like the preacher said, mass is your friend.

Maybe you should just buy the townhouse next door? You'll probably get a good price, what with the constant noise driving down the value.

[Rudechain]

Well that's quite a pickle you got there.

There are several trains of thought on this.

Dog's will do this type of behavior as a behavior being separated from the "pack" and it's a rather loud display of emotion. I had this issue and our method of resolution was time consuming but eventually it did work.

What we did, is leave the dog for a short period of time at first. ( like five minutes) and then came back. We did not display any emotion or any forms of excitement when leaving or coming back. ( just kept calm like this is normal) We kept repeating this over and over while extending our time away. Eventually, it did work, but it is time consuming.

In the meantime, you can experiment with soundproofing cheaply by picking up tons of empty egg cartons, and a boatload of styro foam peanuts.

fill the egg cartons with the peanuts, or even cotton batting or some soft pliable material. make sure you close them up tight so they won't open and start attaching them to all the surfaces. (attach the flat side to the walls and ceiling)

The thing is you want to be able to baffle that sound while redirecting and absorbing it. Flat surfaces don't work as well as some sort of textured surface.

[artmonkforHOF]

Actually the biggest problem is going to be the concrete wall separating you and your neighbor, that is where most of the sound ins transferring through. Sound travels better through solids than it does air, especially bass. Build a small stud wall along the concrete wall, and make sure to use a thick foam gasket between the bottom plate and the concrete floor, and seal with caulking. Then fill in your cavities with sound insulation, repeat on all 4 walls. Next frame something out on the underside of the stairs to hold some insulation against that. Then put up plastic to cover over the insulation and put up drywall or some other sort of finish board-doing drywall taping under a stair is a nigthmare, and if it is just a room for dogs, find some sort of cheap wood paneling, all you are doing is protecting the insulation so the dogs don't get at it. If the neighbors still complain, throw some carpet down and put fabric on the walls to try and absorb some more sound.

[Elessar78]

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Soundproof_a_Room