I need to soundproof a room to prevent traffic noise (not honks, but engines etc). How can I approach this?
Soundproofing a room from outside traffic noise and vibrations
sound-proofing
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Best Answer
Here's an out of the box idea. How about active noise cancellation? put a few decent quality full range speakers in the room and find some noise-cancellation software or circuitry that you can tie in with a couple of mics that you orient toward the worst of the sound, and tune the system to cancel out external noise.
If that doesn't sound appealing:
Here's an interesting article: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may08/articles/soundproofing.htm
The first answer suggests "alaska pack" wall construction, which would be great but maybe you can't go quite that far.
You might be able to fir the existing walls out and fill the gap with a dense material. Sand is actually a very good sound insulator because it is very dense, and because a lot of energy is absorbed by friction between the sand grains. You could build a false floor the same way.
Do bear in mind that the sand will be very heavy. You should calculate the weight and maybe get an engineer involved in doing a bit of math to make sure the existing structure can take it.
If you build the panels out with 3/4" plywood and secure everything well enough to the existing framing (or are your walls masonry?), you might be able to build it in stages, against the wall, seal all the joints extremely well with something like caulk or spray foam, and pour sand into it, do the next layer, fill that with sand, etc. Then put in an acoustic drop ceiling like the first answer suggests.
You could maybe use spray foam instead of sand to fill the gap, but it won't absorb sound as well because it is nowhere near as dense. In that vein, though, you could also try gluing solid foam panels to your existing walls.
Low frequency sound (trucks on the freeway) will be the toughest to block. Low enough frequency sound travels right though the earth itself, so good luck with that.
Electrical outlets could be a problem. You can't hide any electrical junctions, so you would need to use some kind of extension boxes to pull them out to the new wall surface.
Good luck!