John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

hi guys,

I'm looking for a little help with sorting out doors for my little practice room/studio. I've built a shed type studio similar to johnps studio here but with a flat roof and no window! viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9556
I used 2 x 1 hour fire doors for the interior and exterior walls, which blocked out enough sound that I was happy to play drums up until early evening without annoying the neigbhours. Unfortunately, the exterior door hasn't taken to the weather very well and expanded enough that we had to force the bugger open and shave some off. Now it's contracted again it's no longer forming a seal so i'm looking to replace it with a proper exterior door(and maybe the interior one as well if it brings the noise leakage down more). Does anyone know if this sort of door would be better/worse at keeping the sound in than the fire doors?:

http://www.doordeals.co.uk//emerchantpr ... oduct=1860

If not, can anyone recommend something that would? Also, does anyone know what type of rubber seal would be the best to use on these?

Cheers

Jon

you might be better served with a proper [metal?] exterior door with seals to keep out the elements, and a "super door" on the interior to preserve the isolation.

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Glenn

Ideally I want to keep things as simple as possible so i'd rather not have to go down the super door route if I can avoid it. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get less leakage with one of these doors than I did with standard fire doors.

"Unfortunately, the exterior door hasn't taken to the weather very well and expanded enough that we had to force the bugger open and shave some off."

Exterior doors require strict attention to proper sealing. A door with an MDF band will expand, a typical wood band does not move as much as it reads like you are dealing with.

But the proper attention to primer/1st coat/2nd coat of exterior paint can not be over stated.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

I made the mistake of trusting a friend who said he knew what he was doing with the doors. I won't be doing that again! So, does anyone know if the doors above would be equal or better for helping to keep the noise in? (installed properly of course )

Yes these look good, but trust me, for an external door it is a two step process. The main step is to seal the doors from the environment....very important...and I do not mean to do the sides and the top of the door and to forget the bottom...the bottom of the door is where the deterioration will start.


You want to install this door with a good hinge designed to carry the load...and you have to frame the rough opening to support this door/frame which may be a heavy load, more so than is usual.

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Brien Holcombe
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Sound: You can't stop it, you can only try to contain it.

That's great, thanks! I will be paying a professional to do a proper job this time!

Cheers

Jon