When things feel too noisy and unbearable at the home or office, you may want to consider installing acoustic panels. People install acoustic panels at their homes and places of work to help reduce noise and create an atmosphere of peace. Whether you are considering acoustic panels for your residence or place of work, you may be wondering about how effective these items are before you invest in them.
Acoustic panels do work both ways when reducing noise. However, soundproofing works best when the panels are equal in shape on both sides. While the material used to create acoustic panels helps to increase the soundproofing effects, the shape of the acoustic panels also dictates the overall experience.
No matter where you plan to install your acoustic panels, you’ll get to enjoy a bit of silence of relaxation once you’ve installed them. Fortunately, using acoustic panels can make a massive difference and protect you from unpleasant noise and distractions. Below we’ll cover how correctly installing acoustic panels can assist you with noise reduction both ways.
How Noise Reduction Works Both Ways
If you plan on installing acoustic panels at your home or office, you’ll need to understand how acoustic panels can work both ways. To do that, we’ll have to break down how soundproofing acoustic panels work. We’ll also cover how you can correctly install your acoustic panels so that they’ll work both ways when reducing noise. That way, you’ll never have to worry about annoying noise pollution again.
How Acoustic Panels Are Used
Acoustic panels, also known as soundproof foam, work well to block and prevent you from experiencing a wide variety of sounds. If you work or own a recording studio, purchasing acoustic panels can help protect your artistic endeavors from noise pollution and other commotion that could destroy your innovation and creativity.
Acoustic panels aren’t just used for recording studios. People also utilize acoustic panels to help keep the sound away from the interiors of their residences and commercial properties. If you value privacy at your residence, or if you feel your neighbors are overly loud, then acoustic panels might be the answer for you. Many commercial properties utilize acoustic panels to bring down the noise of their workers’ experience, which can help to increase production.
If you are planning on soundproofing any area in your home, you’ll want to make sure you soundproof both sides of your wall. By doing that with soundproofing foam that’s similar in size on either side of your wall, you’ll be utilizing a familiar strategy that works. By ensuring that the shape of your acoustic panels and soundproofing foam is consistent on both sides of the wall, you’ll be able to get your acoustic panels to work both ways to reduce noise.
Acoustic Panels Block and Absorb Sound
Acoustic panels use soundproofing foam, which is a material that is used to block and absorb sound from penetrating walls. Soundproofing foam helps to block sounds because it acts as a porous material with soft construction, allowing it to obstruct sounds and prevent noise from penetrating walls.
As sound waves hit and make their way into a flat, hard surface, those waves only bounce off of those surfaces. That means sound waves reflect off of hard, flat surfaces. That’s also why you’ll hear echoes in rooms that have hard, flat walls around then. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help to absorb the sound at all and only reverberates the noise, creating more commotion.
On the other hand, when a sound wave comes into contact with something like textile or foam that isn’t a hard, flat surface, but instead a porous one, textiles and foam then work to help absorb the sound. That means they not only prevent echoes, but also stop noise from penetrating through the walls.
Traveling Sound Waves
As sound waves travel through the air, they come in contact with objects by force and wind up, creating vibrations. For instance, when a person talks, he or she creates sound waves that travel through the air as vibrations for another person to hear. Therefore, sound waves operate as a form of energy. As a form of energy, sound waves will wind up having one of two things happen to them:
- Sound waves can be reflected, like when they hit a flat surface.
- Sound waves can be absorbed, which happens when they run into a porous, soft surface, like soundproofing foam.
So, utilizing acoustic panels and soundproofing foam on both sides of a wall can effectively prevent noise from penetrating a room.
The Shape Of The Material
While the material used to create the acoustic panels is important, the shape of the soundproofing form is also essential to reducing noise. Noise reduction won’t happen if you are utilizing flat surfaces in a room. Thus, the creation of most walls means you are making a greater opportunity for experiencing echoes. That’s because, as previously discussed, sound waves bounce off of flat surfaces.
Soundproofing foam, on the other hand, is not installed in such a way as to create a flat surface. Instead, soundproofing foam is used in acoustic panels at an angle, which makes it easier for the soundproofing foam to absorb the noise. Since sound travels in waves, placing a porous material like soundproofing foam at an angle increases the likelihood that acoustic panels will absorb the noise.
The more angles placed in soundproofing foam, the fewer chances there are of the sound waves simply bouncing off and echoing. Angles make it far more likely that the sound waves will get absorbed rather than deflected. So, soundproofing foam is usually developed with several angles inside of the acoustic panels. That way, the sound waves will not deflect and will instead be absorbed by the porous foam.
Also, the more absorbent the material you use in your walls, the greater the likelihood that the sound waves will not echo. Soundproofing foam utilized inside of acoustic panels is known for being very absorbent. If the acoustic panels are placed on both sides of the wall, and the shapes of the acoustic panels are similar, you are doubling the chances that the acoustic panels will absorb the sound.
On the other hand, more reflective materials, like the types of carved stones you find inside of cathedrals, the more likely that the sound wave will be reflected and cause an echo and more noise around you.
Installing Acoustic Panels
When you install acoustic panels, make sure those panels contain the following qualities:
- The foam should be very porous.
- The foam needs to be extremely soft.
- The foam needs to have many angles to absorb sound.
If you can ensure that, you’ll wind up with acoustic panels that perform well and reduce noise. Also, if you want your soundproofing to work both ways, then you need to make sure you install the acoustic panels on both sides. The acoustic panels should mirror each other and be similar in shape. Also, ensure that the acoustic panels face both directions so that they can absorb sound coming from both ways.
[Related Article: DIY Sound Absorbing Panel : Let’s Build Acoustic Panels in 5 Steps]Conclusion
You’ll discover many choices when it comes to utilizing different kinds of acoustic foam for your acoustic panels when you go about soundproofing. If you can ensure that your foam materials are angled, soft, and porous, then you should be able to experience plenty of noise reduction. By reducing incoming sound waves and their opportunity to echo or deflect off of a wall, you can utilize your acoustic panels to soundproof your walls easily.
