Insulated shed/studio/office

[fd3]

The Shed needs replacing.  I like the idea of a garden office, but not the price.  We could do with a place where #1 son can play acoustic drums without being excessively antisocial towards neighbours and I was thinking of a middle ground - large shed with a layer of insulation.
Any thoughts from the panel as to how ludicrous it would be?

[JellyLegs]

I know nothing about sound deadening etc, but for two or three years when my youngest was small and before we could afford a proper extension, I worked from home in an 8x6 shed that I lined with celotex, then plasterboarded and painted.  I also insulated and boarded the ceiling and double boarded and carpeted the floor, but I was concerned about cold and keeping the heating required to a minimum whilst being warm enough to work from.

From the outside it looks for all the world like a standard shed, from the inside it looks exactly like a very small office.  The work took me about 3 weekends and cost about as much as the shed again in extra materials, the bulk of which was the insulation which isn’t cheap.  The work is well within the scope of any even vaguely competent DIYer if you aren’t looking to include power which obviously brings it under Part P and electrical safety regs.

The shed became just a shed 15 years ago when we extended the house but it’s still warm and dry.

[road-runner]

Cam I comment on the drumming part? Acoustics drums are loud. Two things can work in your favour:

1, Distance. How far the shed will be from the nearest neighbour? The weakest point is likely to be the neighbour's open bedroom window on a summer's evening.

2, Density. How much mass will the shed walls, door, window(s), floor and roof have?

What would I suggest as a starting point? Download an SPL Meter app (SPL Meter by Studio Six Digital is excellent and accurate, all for $0.99, Apple app link) or buy an SPL meter and get your son to play his snare and kick drums in the garden where the shed will be. If you stand on the boundary of your property and your neighbour's and measure how loud he is - set the SPL meter to A weighting and fast response. Deduct 30db as noise laws will allow at least 30dB noise without a problem and that will tell you how many dB the shed needs to dampen the drum volume so that he can indeed play without annoying the neighbour.

Report back with the dB requirement of the shed and we can work from there.

[Mr Larrington]

Wot r-r said.  The von Brandenburgs spent a LOT of money on a Sheds which was supposed to be suitable for playing drums in and wasn’t.  The manufacturers lied through their teeth and said they never claimed any such thing.  Unfortunately for them, and their bottom line, there was evidence to show that they had changed their webby SCIENCE only after legal proceedings were initiated.

Mr von Brandenburg's electronic practice kit was audible from inside the Schloß even when the doors of both the Schloß and the Sheds were closed.

[fruitcake]

Had a brief chat with an architect friend when another friend had problems with noise from next door. The advice was that sound-proofing material would need to be high density, and that sand-based material would be the most likely solution for a party wall in a house.

So, I guess a rockwool or polystyrene based product wouldn't do much for drumkit sound. An underground seekrit bunker however...

[mrcharly-YHT]

I used some sound insulation on a barge - the engine was under a large metal hatch, on which you stood to steer. Absolutely deafening.

Bought a slap of stuff - it was like sheet of lead-impregnated rubber, sandwiched by foam.

The foam absorbed high frequencies, the lead sheet absorbed the low sound; which then lost energy vibrating in the foam.

You could try mimicking something like that. Heavy flexible slab sandwiched by foam.

[Kim]

Perennial reminder that acoustic foam comes in 'fire hazard' and 'non-fire-hazard' varieties.  I know it's only a shed, but...

[Cudzoziemiec]

I used to know someone who had sound-dampened the basement of their terraced house to use as a rehearsal space, by sticking eggboxes all over the walls and ceiling. But I think that was more guitars and keyboards than drums.

[perpetual dan]

I thought eggboxes and foam panels inside were more about making the room sound nice to the musicians, while the double thickness of plasterboard, isolation of the floor and careful sealing of all gaps was about keeping the sound in.

[slope]

I thought eggboxes and foam panels inside were more about making the room sound nice to the musicians, while the double thickness of plasterboard, isolation of the floor and careful sealing of all gaps was about keeping the sound in.

As an ex sound engineer a very long time ago, but only in live concert environments, so not particularly concerned - not my problem mate! I recall talking to the studio engineers in Abbey Road about the reason for such heavy doors that took a great deal of effort to close and open, and was told it was due more to the air sealing than the actual physical weight of the sound insulation. No matter how thickly insulated the walls etc are, if there's any air gaps - NOISE will escape with great gusto regardless.

But people still need to breathe of course, especially of you're banging all sorts of stuff out of drums🤔

Perhaps more complicated that one might imagine?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

There oughta be practice drums, the sound of which can only be heard through headphones.  I'll get Zuckerberg onto to it, although he might already have it sorted for Meta.

[fruitcake]

There are indeed practice drum kits of various designs.

Was thinking about the problem yesterday, and it occured to be that another approach to noise baffling is that used in server cabinets - there the cabinet containing the noisy thing is not an airtight box, rather it has labyrinth vents for the air to move through which breaks up the sound waves. I have no idea if the labyrinth principle could be applied here, or how this might be implemented (shed with inner door and outer door / double-wall shed with air gap / heavy drapes on the shed walls?) though it also reminds me that urban motorways use dense tree foliage (conifers etc.) to isolate the road noise, which I assume breaks up the sound waves.

Someone who knows about this stuff will be along soon to bat these ideas around...

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Foliage isn't a particularly good sound reduction measure for road noise (compared to earth banks or concrete sound walls) but it does do quite a good job of reducing complaints. To be fair, greenery does reflect and damp high frequency noise (if there is enough greenery) but it generally isn't heavy enough to significantly affect low frequencies.

[mrcharly-YHT]

You can get things like slabs of rubber. Supposed to have similar rebound to a drum skin, but not the volume.

[fd3]

Cheers for all the replies. 

We have a very long garden and the shed would be at the end, so I am less concerned about noise than fecking cold.  So it seems like a shed +added (heat) insulation should work.

#1 son has an electric drumkit and that allows him to practice with acceptable noise to the rest of the house when his headphones are on.  But Acoustic is much cooler.

[fruitcake]

I think I'd choose the biggest shed available. I might look at turf roof designs, where the roof has a layer of soil on top. That would provide thermal mass - so the shed would warm up and cool down slower - and it would absorb some sound. I'd retrofit a second door in the existing doorway, inward opening. That should reduce air flow around the door which would reduce air changes and reduce noise through the doorway. At that stage you've got a usable space that won't fluctuate in temperature as quickly as a simple shed, and will have long term use for storage and perhaps as a study during the daytime in spring and autumn.

Finally I'd consider adding an additional skin to the walls to absorb sound waves. That would be your dense material. Rubber slabs or sandbags supported by vertical stud timbers. I'd have Drummer Son do the lifting and carrying there! As with the turf roof, that would provide thermal mass and sound absorption. And at that stage, it becomes a drumming shed. Floor joists on the shed would need to be substantial to support the weight of the material you add to the walls.

Strategically placed shrubs and trees could provide shade so the shed wouldn't overheat in summer.

When the shed's no longer to be used for drumming, the dense material could be replaced with thermal insulation (such as Celotex or rockwool) which could be boarded over with tongue and groove or plywood.

[road-runner]

I am really impressed with the amount of correct information here. Can I reorganise some of the information above?

ISOLATION, called soundproofing by amateurs, is about what needs to be done to ensure that noise levels can be reduced to acceptable levels. We are talking about mass, like earth, concrete, bricks, plasterboard, all common building materials, as well as lead and other effective but expensive materials.

ACOUSTIC TREATMENT, also called soundproofing by amateurs, is about making the sound that stays in the studio more accurate which in turn will make it sound more pleasant. Some of the treatment works to minimise too much reverb (bathrooms have more reverb than bedrooms) and other treatments work to ensure the sound is even across the entire audio spectrum. Foam*, egg boxes and carpets soak up only the highest frequencies, leaving an unbalanced frequency reponse; notice how a night club can sound good inside but but just bassy and boomy outside.

*foam, especially for Kim: while there are fire-hazardous and fire-retardant foams, in audio we primarily differentiate between open-cell and closed-cell foams. Open-cell foam has usable audio qualities but because foam is so expensive compared to fluffy insulation and gets sold so thin, many home studio builders use foam tiles too thin yet cannot change the laws of physics (frequencies' wavelengths) and so it only affects high frequencies. In professional studios the only foam you will find is the padding in chairs and headphones.

fd3 ...

Your son's electronic kit probably has mesh heads which make it quieter to play. Mesh heads (Remo SilentStroke and others) are available to fit to an acoustic kit to bring the volume level of the drums down to similarly low levels. There are quieter cymbals (Zildjian L80 and others) which have lots (hundreds) of holes in them to facilitate home acoustic kits that are not crazy loud.

In planning your shed, you would be wise to plan temperature and humidity control so that condensation and rot do not ruin wooden drums or cause your books to curl and mould to ruin the carpets, curtains and more.

Your son might be interested to look at my not yet finished studio in the WFH rejig topic (part 1 and part 2). Mine is a mixing studio and a rehearsal room all in one, so I have things he will not need but some aspects, such as the HVAC (heating, ventilation* and air conditioning) will be useful for him to understand.

*ventilation, especially for fruitcake: I mentioned the silencers in my WFH posts but did not explain how they work. Exactly as you say, the labrynth means air can flow freely but as sound likes to travel in straight lines, by the time the air has flowed through two silencers it is just air without the sound. This photo shows you my silencers before I closed them up.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Pedantic addition:
RR's labyrinth silencers work by increasing path length (inverse square law) and minimising reflection of sound waves around the internal walls (the 'padding'). There is still diffraction of sound waves around the internal walls but the increased path length significantly reduces intensity.

[fruitcake]

I love those labyrinth vents.

[Kim]

*foam, especially for Kim: while there are fire-hazardous and fire-retardant foams, in audio we primarily differentiate between open-cell and closed-cell foams. Open-cell foam has usable audio qualities but because foam is so expensive compared to fluffy insulation and gets sold so thin, many home studio builders use foam tiles too thin yet cannot change the laws of physics (frequencies' wavelengths) and so it only affects high frequencies. In professional studios the only foam you will find is the padding in chairs and headphones.

Interesting.

My acoustic foam experience is limited to enclosing things that make fan and disk noise, which is the sort of application where (in room size terms) small quantities of something expensive but easy to work with make sense.  And since it's primarily high frequencies you're trying to kill, it's relatively easy to get decent attenuation by indiscriminately applying it to appropriate surfaces.

(The trick of course is allowing enough air to circulate for cooling purposes, as fruitcake mentioned.)

As for flammability, after a UPS upgrade I bought some suspiciously cheap 'acoustic' foam a few years back, and it turned out to be open-cell foam of the type you'd use to line flightcases for small equipment.  To be fair, it did make an appreciable difference to the fan noise, but on a whim I set fire to an offcut to see what would happen and, well, it immediately got replaced by something three times the price that wouldn't sustain combustion (and was denser and substantially more sound-absorbing, as a bonus).  I expect that if you lined a shed with it you'd end up with a very warm shed that took the edge off the sharp end of the drumming while doing almost nothing for the bass, and a gaping hole in your bank account.

[fd3]

So, having cleared out the shed and outhouse we are in an interesting position of thinki8ng that we don't really need a shed, so are thinking of an outdoor room sort of thing.
We were shortlisting to
this
or
this
as in a space with some light and not shed-thin walls.  I think either/both do additional insulation as an extra and I suspect that we could do that ourselves as well over time.
I'm thinking space for drumkit and hanging a bike on the wall, with the option for it to be a sitting area if/when drums are no longer a thing.

If anyone has thoughts I'd welcome them.

[Mr Larrington]

Drums require A LOT of sound insulation, including underneath, as the von Brandenburgs will attest.  The Sheds at their previous Schloß was sold to them as being suitable for drums but turned out not to be. 

[fd3]

^ Yes, but also meh.  With my son being a learner as opposed to a pro he tends to practice <20 mins a day so we could just set up an acoustic drum kit in his room and tell the neighbours that they have to suck it up.

But instead we are moving him to a shed 10m from the house.  Add hedges to the soundproofing and stick some damping pads on the drums.  I don't think they really can kick up that much of a fuss.

So insulation is still primarily a not-fecking-cold/hot query.

And people what know sheds could let me know whether the linked above are shite or not.

[SoreTween]

I put up a Tuin Jorgen last year, very similar to the one you linked to just under 3/4 the size.  Very happy with the quality, absolutely not shite and very easy to put up.

[fd3]

^ A worthy and helpful endorsement.