Soundproofing your bedroom is incredibly useful — and essential if you want maximum privacy and concentration. Unfortunately, doors happen to be the weakest link in terms of soundproofing — which means learning how to soundproof your interior doors is necessary if you’re going to block all incoming and outgoing sounds from your bedroom.
Luckily, there are plenty of different ways you can dampen sound from your bedroom. From installing a new solid core door to some more practical and quicker solutions, we’ll go over all of them right here — while also telling you all about the necessary materials for the job!
Sealing Cracks and Door Frame With Door Gaskets
As you may know already, the sound gets amplified when it goes through gaps. So, if you notice there’s any space around or under your doorframe, the first thing you should consider using is a door gasket.
These are fairly easy to install, and they’ll do a great job of blocking out any sound waves trying to get past your door. Be prepared to remove your doorframe during the installation process — though, as you’ll see, most of the methods here will call for removing your bedroom door temporarily.
Once you do, all that’s left is to line up your gasket inside. After that, you can close your door frame and try out the soundproofing — chances are that sound won’t be coming through those sealed cracks anymore.
Install A Door Sweep
If your noise is slipping through a small space between the floor and the door, you can remedy the issue with a door sweep. This Suptikes Door Sweep model works both for interior and exterior doors, though you’ll obviously be using it on your bedroom door.
These are made out of a thick silicone and rubber polymer — though you’ll find some commercial-grade ones made out of metal, they’re usually used on exterior doors. Nonetheless, the point remains the same; the door sweeps block out any drafts below the door. And when air isn’t going through the crack beneath, the sound isn’t traveling either; which means you won’t hear a peep from the outside when the door is closed, and vice versa.
Installing a door sweep is quite simple; you just need to select the one that’s right for your door dimensions. Most of them are locked in place with screws, which come with the sweep itself. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure the door sweep lines up with your door perfectly; if it drags, you won’t be able to close the door properly, and if it’s too high up, there will still be a crack below.
Add Loaded Vinyl
The best way to block sound and deal with noisy neighbors is to find some heavy mass that will block it; that’s why our walls tend to block out sound better than our doors or windows. However, if you’ve got a hollow core door, you’ve got both a problem and an opportunity.
A hollow door doesn’t block sound very well, but it gives you some space you can fill with heavy materials. For instance, heavy vinyl sheets are great at stopping noise from getting through the door.
Mass-loaded vinyl is a great material to install inside your door’s core. You’ll probably need some sound dampening glue, but that’s great — it will do an even better job at dampening noise.
For instance, this Soundproofing Mass Loaded Vinyl is used by professional musicians and bands when they’re setting up their garage or home studios; so it should do a fine job at soundproofing your bedroom door as well.
Use Gap Foam
Now, many people recommend using gap foam to soundproof a hollow bedroom door. Right off the bat, we have to point out that this isn’t very effective on its own; you need to combine this method with some of the others on our list because filling sections of the door or the hollow doorknob with gap foam will only yield small results. There should still be a more significant sound barrier in gaps and inside your door.
That being said, if you decide to use this in addition to the other stuff — make sure you find a dense formula. The denser your foam is when it reaches its final form, the less sound it will allow to pass through. This Loctite TITE Foam is a great choice but use it carefully.
Begin by spraying it inside the hollow doorknob, and then fill any cracks in the door — or make two holes with a drill yourself, and fill them both to allow the foam to expand evenly. Ideally, this gap foam is a finishing touch for stuff like door sweeps and vinyl sheets.
But as we’ve said before, take great care — you can easily overstuff your hollow core and make the door bust at its seams. You could also make the door sag from the additional mass if it’s not distributed evenly. Remember, a hollow core door isn’t a huge empty space within the door — it’s a bunch of hollow channels that are split into sections.
Get Door Soundproof Blankets
The next thing you can do is to get a thick fiberglass soundproofing blanket and drape it over your door. Putting it on the floor and spreading it out won’t do you much good if the sound is coming from other rooms — logically, the floor blanket will only block sounds coming from below.
However, if you want to block out sounds that could pass through your door temporarily, you could always just get a soundproof blanket and place it over the top of the door in the period when you need soundproofing.
Fiberglass is particularly useful material here because it insulates sound effectively — many music studios, apartments, and houses use it for the very same purpose. And by having a heavyweight soundproofing blanket draped over your door, you’ll be able to successfully block sound for as long as it’s there. Just make sure you get one that’s the right size for your door.
If fiberglass is too expensive for you, there are always more affordable sound absorption sheets like this OUUTMEE Sound Dampening Blanket that’s made from polyester, cotton, and a blend of other materials.
Buy a Solid Wood Door
Most of the methods for soundproofing a bedroom door that we’ve talked about above are applicable to hollow core doors — these have much worse insulation that lets plenty of sound through, seeing as they don’t have a heavy mass.
However, a more drastic way of solving this issue is to simply get a new door. A new solid metal or solid wood door would significantly cut down on the sound. Though, bear in mind that wood does more to dampen your sound than to outright block it — but it’s generally a better visual solution. On the other hand, metal doors can easily bounce soundwaves back in the opposite direction. Still, not many people like having them as interior doors, and plenty of building fire codes stop you from installing heavy metal doors inside.
Use Composite Soundproofing Material
If you’re going to soundproof your bedroom as a whole and not just the door, you can always buy some composite soundproofing material. Then, you can use it as you see fit — both outside, inside, and underneath the door; depending on whether you have a solid core or a hollow-core door.
These materials come in heavy, dense, thick sheets — making them the ideal solution for blocking any incoming or outgoing sounds.
If you buy one of these composite Sound Deadener Mats, you can cut them up into the right dimensions and use them as a doormat under your door to avoid any gaps. Alternatively, if you’re prepared to buy a whole new door altogether, you can find custom doors that come with soundproofing composite sheets inside by default.
And if you don’t care about the aesthetics, you can simply buy these composite fiberglass sheets and screw them or glue them to the sides of your door — they’ll achieve a similar effect.
Order a Soundproofing Kit
As you can see, all of the methods we’ve discussed revolve around a specific material or product. However, you can also find soundproofing kits that contain different options, and they’re already arranged for specific door sizes so there’s less preparation to be made.
Premade kits like this Arrowzoom Multi-Color Single Side one come with weather stripping and composite soundproofing materials — though there are other combinations that include fiberboard, door sweeps, and a plethora of other combinations.
Meeting Stiles
Seeing as we’re talking about a bedroom, it should be noted that people rarely have double doors on them. However, if you happen to have such a set in one of your rooms, you’ll find it almost impossible to effectively soundproof.
Still, there are meeting stiles for double doors that you can buy — these are the best possible solution for sealing double doors each time they’re in contact with each other. This is a composite brush stile, though you can find others made from composite metals, rubber, metal, and other choices.
Installing these is as easy as installing door sweeps — you just find one that’s the fitting size for your door, screw in the bolts in the appropriate places, and check if they work properly.
Fill Your Interior Door With Sand
Our final option isn’t one people resort to often, and it’s not very practical — but it’s an interesting and effective setup, albeit one that takes a ton of preparation. Yes, as the title suggests: it involves filling your hollow doors with sand.
The results are spectacular, as you can rarely find such an effective method for soundproofing doors with other materials. However, once you take a whole hollow-core door and load it up with sand, you’ll find that it’s incredibly heavy.
So, if you decide to go down this route, you’ll need door hinges that are industrial-grade. Otherwise, you’ll probably see the hinges ripped out of your doorframe due to the sand’s sheer weight. However, if you follow all proper installation techniques with this custom setup and get a professional’s help, you’ll see these stop noises better than pretty much anything else.
Apart from good hinges, you’ll need to make sure the sand is absolutely dry — and we do mean absolutely. One of the things people have done to ensure this is to cook the sand in their ovens, though this can obviously get messy.
Also, MDF particle doors likely wouldn’t be able to hold the added weight; this is a method that requires doors that have pine or another real wood material along their edges and hinges.
Bear in mind that if, for any reason, your doorknob hole breaks out and connects with the opening in your door, you won’t be able to stop sand from getting inside the mechanism and ruining it. And if your panel fillers aren’t tight enough, the sand might also leak out over time.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I soundproof my bedroom door?
As you can see from above, there are plenty of methods for effectively soundproofing your bedroom door. You’ll just have to choose the one that suits you the most depending on your budget, your specific door, and the amount of time you’re prepared to spend on this project.
What door is most soundproof?
Metal doors are the best at completely blocking out sounds — though, as we’ve mentioned, they rarely fit into residential interiors aesthetically, and they can also be a fire hazard depending on your local regulations.
How to soundproof a bedroom door quickly?
The quickest way to soundproof a bedroom is definitely to buy a soundproof fiberglass blanket and just drape it over the door; it will leave no lasting damage, and it won’t require any tools or a complex installation process.
Dave Pearson is a Canadian musician, sound editor, and audiophile. He is also the founder and owner of the website SoundProofGeek. On SoundProofGeek, Pearson offers advice and resources on audio equipment, including how to assess and improve audio quality, how to troubleshoot and repair audio equipment, and how to improve the music listening experience.
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