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What Can Hotel Soundproofing Do for Your Business?
- One of the most common complaints guests have about their hotel stay is noise. The voices from the room next door, the sounds of the cleaning staff in the hallway, the rattle of the ice machine down the hall, the noise from the room above…guests don’t return to a hotel if their first stay is restless. When you provide guests with a soundproofed room, you provide a superior experience. Guests return to your hotel and let their friends know. They rate your hotel highly online. Your business is improved and your revenue increases. Hotels come to Soundproof Cow because they’re getting complaints from guests about noise. Once they install hotel soundproofing, they realize the business their noisy rooms were costing them!
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What Can Hotel Soundproofing do For You?
- • Improve the sound quality in a convention hall or banquet room, positioning your hotel as a prime location for facility rentals • Minimize noise complaints, reducing or eliminating costly reimbursements for unhappy guests • Provide a restful and peaceful stay so guests return and tell others, improving your business
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How Do You Know Which Type of Hotel Soundproofing?
- Here’s an easy 2-step process to determine which you need: Step 1: Identify WHAT noise is being heard. Is it someone’s voice? It is the noise of the TV? Is it the vending machine? Step 2: Identify WHERE the noise is coming from. Is the noise coming from inside the same space as your guest, or is it coming from a separate area? For instance, is it the sound of the indoor pool adjacent to the room? Is it the echoes from the TV in the same room as you? If there’s a construction element, such as a wall, that separates you from the noise, then it’s not in the same space as your guest.
Hotel Soundproofing Products
Hotel Sound Absorption Products
Imagine you’re a hotel guest, and you’re driving 12 hours to reach your hotel after a sleepless night. Chances are, you’re looking forward to diving into the hotel bed and catching up on sleep before you spend the next day sightseeing. Now imagine you can’t sleep because you hear your neighbor snoring on the other side of the wall. You probably won’t feel like running out to buy earplugs at 2 a.m., but you might feel like leaving a bad review the next day.
As a hotel owner, you want to make sure your guests can sleep and enjoy their stay as much as possible. Part of this is ensuring your hotel rooms are quiet. According to a Deloitte survey, “quiet” is one of the basic features critical to guest satisfaction. When you meet or exceed your guests’ expectations, they are more likely to leave a positive review, recommend your hotel to others, and return in the future.
Any steps you can take to improve the privacy and peace of your hotel rooms are well worth it for your business and your guests. In this post, we’ll show you how to reduce noise in a hotel room and the benefits of soundproof hotel rooms. We’ll also recommend hotel soundproofing products we offer at Soundproofcow.com.
Benefits of Hotel Room Noise Reduction
People stay in hotels for numerous reasons, from visiting family to enjoying a vacation. No matter the reason for their stay, most guests want to sleep and relax in their room. When you reduce noise in your hotel, you make guests much happier, and you’ll also enjoy several benefits as the owner. Here are some rewards of hotel soundproofing:
- Improved customer satisfaction: When noise from other rooms, the hallway or outside sources keeps guests from getting the sleep they need or interrupts their work, they may feel frustrated, cranky and ultimately dissatisfied with your hotel. A soundproof hotel is highly desired by guests and can make them feel comfortable, appreciated and satisfied.
- Lower energy costs: Hotels consume a ton of energy. According to ENERGY STAR, hotels spend an average of $2,196 per available room on energy each year. You can reduce energy costs by adding insulation and sealing windows and doors. Many soundproofing materials also double as insulating materials and can help rooms maintain comfortable temperatures throughout the year as well as be quieter.
- Happier employees: When customers are unhappy due to noise issues, they may complain to employees. Employees dealing with stressed-out guests may also experience increased stress levels. When employees are unhappy at work, they’re more likely to leave, which can be costly to you as the hotel owner. Therefore, when you reduce noise in your hotel and make guests happy, you also make your employees happier and more comfortable at work.
- Better business: Many people will avoid a business due to a bad review, and the majority of customers don’t really trust businesses that have lower than a 4-star rating. Give your guests good reasons to leave positive online reviews, and you’ll likely see more customers.
How to Soundproof Hotel Rooms
Sound waves travel until they get absorbed by a sound-absorbing material or dissipate. Sound waves can penetrate improperly insulated walls, windows, doors and floors, and seep through cracks and gaps.
Low-frequency sounds are especially difficult to treat. Low-frequency sounds have long sound waves and are tougher to block. So, if a hotel guest likes to blast the bass through their music system, it will likely impact the neighboring rooms if you don’t have dense materials to block the sound. Adequate hotel soundproofing can help eliminate all-frequency sounds by blocking and absorbing sound waves. You’ll need to address all the areas of each hotel room where sound might get through, such as the doors, walls, windows, floors and ceilings.
Doors are a weak spot when it comes to sound. Doors that lack density and aren’t sealed around the edges allow noise to leak inside. To soundproof the doors in your hotel, first consider if you can switch out hollow core doors for heavy solid core doors, as they will be much better at blocking sound. Whether you have solid or hollow doors, you’ll still want to take the following steps to soundproof hotel doors:
- Install automatic door sweeps: An automatic door sweep attaches to the bottom of a door and pushes down against the door threshold as the door closes, forming a tight seal. This keeps sound from seeping underneath the door. Our Quiet Door™ Automatic Door Sweep is easy to install and made with durable aluminum and sound-blocking silicone.
- Install perimeter seals: You also need to keep sound from leaking through the sides of hotel doors. To seal up door perimeters, you can install tight-fitting silicone seals like our Quiet Door™ Perimeter Seals.
Your guests likely do not want to hear other guests sneezing, coughing or even whispering in the middle of the night — or in the middle of the day. Walls that seem to be made of paper lead to angry guests and bad reviews. If you want to make your guests feel transported to a luxury resort, even on a budget, you can drastically increase their comfort with soundproof walls.
To soundproof the walls in your hotel, you generally need to add mass, air space or both, and seal the perimeters. Here are steps you can take to soundproof hotel walls:
- Increase wall thickness: Generally, the denser the wall, the harder it is for noise to get through. That’s why concrete walls are better at reducing noise transmission than wood walls even if they are the same width. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), doubling the thickness of a wall can reduce sound by as much as 6 decibels (dB). This can make a big difference as the intensity of sound grows extremely fast. To increase wall mass, you can add more insulation to the wall cavities, or add a second layer of drywall to the existing wall and install a soundproofing material like mass loaded vinyl (MLV) or Green Glue between drywall layers.
- Add resilient channels: Resilient channels, or metal beams, keep the drywall from the studs and reduce structural vibration and noise. Resilient channels also enhance the soundproofing capabilities of other materials. Resilient channels must be applied before drywall is installed.
- Install sound-absorbing materials: Besides adding soundproofing materials to the insides of walls, you can also reduce noise transmission and reverberation by mounting materials like acoustic panels to finished walls. Acoustic panels soak up sound waves and keep them from bouncing around the room. You can even choose colorful and attractive fabric-wrapped acoustic panels to match the decor.
- Seal cracks and edges: Make sure to seal up any holes or cracks in the walls or around the edges using an acoustical sound sealant. Even the smallest hole in a wall can sabotage your soundproofing efforts.
Windows are one of the weakest points of a wall and can defeat the purpose of having a soundproof wall. Here are ways to soundproof windows in your hotel, which can make a huge difference in noise control:
- Install laminated glass windows: Laminated glass windows contain an extra layer of plastic that serves as a
barrier between the two glass sheets. Laminated glass windows offer better soundproofing capabilities than tempered glass windows. - Seal windows: No matter what type of glass you have, make sure to close up any gaps around the windows with an acoustic sealant or thick insulation tape like Quiet Barrier® Tape.
- Treat nearby walls: Install acoustic panels on walls surrounding the windows to improve overall soundproofing in the room.
- Install thicker windows: If sealed windows do not sufficiently block noise, consider installing windows with thicker glass, and don’t forget to choose laminated glass. Make sure to seal the newly installed windows as well. You can also install two sets of windows, or double-glazed windows, with a large air space between them.
- Hang heavy curtains: Once your windows are sealed, hang noise-blocking curtains to further soundproof your windows and help guests feel more comfortable.
If your hotel has carpeting in the room, you’re already halfway there when it comes to floor soundproofing. Carpeting is a great material for cushioning impact noise and footfall, but sometimes it’s not always enough to create the sanctuary your guests expect.
To soundproof a floor, you can install a concrete slab or a floating floor. A floating floor consists of wood or concrete placed over the structural slab. Although a floating floor is a highly effective soundproofing solution, it’s also costly. Your best option for cost-effective floor soundproofing is to install a soundproofing flooring underlayment. An underlayment will go between the carpet and the floor to effectively block unwanted noise.
Drop ceilings are usually sufficient at effectively reducing noise, but if you still have noise issues or have drywall ceilings, you may need to take steps to soundproof the ceiling. Here are ways to soundproof the ceiling, because your guests don’t need to know there’s a dance troupe lodging above them:
- Add an underlayment to the floor above: You can soundproof the ceiling by soundproofing the floor above. Why not accomplish two goals at once?
- Fill in the ceiling space: A single layer of drywall is not very good at blocking sound. If you have a drywall ceiling, you can fill in the ceiling space with a soundproofing material such as mineral wool.
- Add another layer of drywall: You can also add another layer of drywall with Green Glue or MLV in between layers.
- Add resilient channels: Consider adding resilient channels and insulation underneath drywall to eliminate vibrations and effectively reduce noise transmission.
- Seal the perimeter: Make sure to seal the ceiling perimeter with acoustical caulk after you soundproof the ceiling.
Hotel Soundproofing Products Available at Soundproof Cow
Soundproofing is our passion at Soundproof Cow. We offer a vast selection of high-quality soundproofing products you can use to soundproof hotel rooms and make guests feel like VIPs. Here are some of our recommended products for hotel soundproofing.
Our IsoTrax® Sound Isolation System is the ultimate soundproofing solution for walls or ceilings. IsoTrax® is designed to be installed inside a wall assembly. By using sound isolation rails and sound deadening pads, IsoTrax® keeps drywall separate from the studs. This effectively eliminates vibrations and decreases sound transmission. If you’re looking for superior soundproofing for your hotel, and are able to apply a system to a wall assembly, IsoTrax® will not disappoint you or your jet-lagged guests.
If you want to soundproof your hotel floors and reduce impact noise, consider PROFLEX™ 90. PROFLEX™ 90 is a soundproofing flooring underlayment that goes between the floor covering and the subfloor. Composed of a specially formulated rubberized membrane, PROFLEX™ 90 is a strong material that bridges cracks and eliminates noise transfer. It also provides excellent impact insulation, so hotel guests can dance to their favorite tunes without disturbing guests below. With its simple peel-and-stick application, you can install PROFLEX™ 90 underneath tile, stone and hardwood floors.
If you need to increase wall thickness and block noise transmission between rooms, you need a powerful sound blocker like Quiet Barrier® HD Soundproofing Material. This 1/4-inch-thick high-density material is a specially designed MLV product. With Quiet Barrier® HD Soundproofing Material, you’ll be able to block sound transfer between hotel rooms and improve the acoustics within the room. You can nail Quiet Barrier® HD Soundproofing Material directly to the wall studs, or apply Quiet Barrier® to existing drywall. This extremely versatile material can also be used to soundproof the floors and ceilings.
Acoustic panels enhance the sound quality of a hotel room by absorbing sound waves, and they can fit seamlessly in with the decor. At Soundproofcow.com, we offer a range of acoustic panels to suit your style and soundproofing needs. Here are some of our options:
- Art Acoustic Panels: Art Acoustic Panels improve sound quality and reduce reverberations while adding elegance to a room. Our Art Acoustic Panels are made-to-order, so you get to choose the fabric color and design. Featuring a sound-absorbing mineral wool core and soft fabric covering, these panels add beauty and peace to a room. If you’d like the option to switch things up once in a while, consider our ADAPT™ Acoustical Treatments. These acoustical “skins” offer soundproofing that evolves with your style or season.
- Echo Absorber™ Acoustic Cotton Panels: Our Echo Absorber™ Acoustic Cotton Panels are made of 80% recycled cotton. These panels offer flexibility and cost-effectiveness. You can install Echo Absorber™ inside walls as a sound-insulating material, or where you need soundproofing in oddly shaped places. Echo Absorber™ Acoustic Cotton Panels are eco-friendly, Class A fire-rated, and resistant to mold and mildew, so you can feel good about the soundproofing materials in your hotel.
- Fabric-Wrapped Acoustic Panels: Our Udderly Quiet™ Acoustic Panels are our standard fabric-wrapped acoustic panels. You can easily mount these all-purpose panels to walls or ceilings, and they’re made-to-order to fit your requirements. They’re available in a range of sizes and colors and will help muffle conversations in hotel rooms and improve speech intelligibility.
Do the rooms in your hotel have high ceilings? Are you looking to soundproof large open spaces in your hotel, like conference rooms or banquet halls? Hanging baffles are perfect for reducing echos and reverberations in large open spaces. Hanging baffles are acoustic panels that suspend from the ceiling by chains and hooks. They also come in handy if you need to improve sound quality and reduce reverberations in a room with limited wall space. We offer easy-to-install Udderly Quiet™ Acoustic Baffles and Echo Absorber™ Hanging Baffles to meet your budget and material preferences.
Get a Free Acoustic Analysis Today
When guests pull into your hotel parking lot, they look forward to getting settled into their room and catching up on rest. They expect excellent service, cleanliness and quietness, no matter the cost of the hotel room. If any of these areas fail to meet their expectations, they likely won’t be happy with their experience.
As a hotel owner, you want your guests to feel comfortable and enjoy a restful stay. You can enhance their experience and increase comfort levels when you reduce noise. Considering that noise is a major complaint among hotel guests, soundproofing your hotel is a worthwhile investment.
You don’t have to go through the process alone. At Soundproofcow.com, we’re all about making soundproofing highly-effective and straightforward for all of our customers. We offer a vast range of soundproofing materials to help you reach your goals and stay within budget. For more information about hotel soundproofing, feel free to reach out to us, and we’ll be happy to answer your questions. Ready to moove towards creating a peaceful stay for your guests? Fill out our Free Acoustic Analysis today!
Soundproof Other Spaces
I just wanted to let you know that in the end, sealing the air spaces on this door worked just fine and took care of the problem.
I really appreciate you taking so much time to share your expertise with me, and in particular recommending I try the simpler solution before investing in more expensive noise barriers. That is a big credit to you and your business.
- Mike