Noise at home has become a growing problem across Australia. Urban density is up, traffic volumes keep rising, and windows and walls that seemed fine five years ago suddenly feel paper-thin. If you’re waking up to trucks at 5am, lying awake while the neighbours watch television, or struggling to concentrate because of what’s happening outside your window, it’s not in your head.
Soundblock Solutions has been fixing residential noise problems for over twenty five years. In that time we’ve worked on everything from single-room window treatments to full acoustic rebuilds of multi-storey homes. What we’ve learned is that most noise problems have a real solution, and that getting to the right one requires actually understanding where the sound is coming from and how it’s travelling through the building.
This page covers the main areas of a typical home we treat, the products and methods we use, and how to know which approach fits your situation.
There are two types of noise transmission in a home, and they require different solutions.
Airborne noise
Sound that travels through air and through building elements: traffic, voices, music, TV. The performance measure for airborne noise is the STC (Sound Transmission Class) or Rw (Weighted Sound Reduction Index) rating. A standard single-glazed window might sit at STC 27. A quality secondary glazing installation can push that to STC 40-45. For reference, an increase of 10 STC points roughly halves the perceived noise.
Impact noise
Sound generated by physical contact with the building itself: footsteps on a floor above, a chair being dragged, something dropped. Impact noise travels through the structure, not the air, which is why it’s harder to stop and needs different treatment. Resilient channel ceiling systems, acoustic underlays, and floating floor assemblies address this category.
Windows are almost always the weakest point acoustically. Even double-glazed windows, which perform well thermally, often disappoint on noise because the air gap is too small to do much for sound.
We don’t replace your existing windows. We add to them.
Magnetic Secondary Glazing
Our magnetic panel system is made to the exact dimensions of your window. A steel channel is fixed to the existing frame, and the acoustic panel bonds to it magnetically, creating an airtight seal with no rattling. You can pull the panel off in seconds for ventilation or cleaning. The air gap between the original glazing and the new panel is what does the acoustic work, and it’s significantly more effective than standard double glazing. Expect STC improvements in the range of 10-15 points, which translates to a 50-70% reduction in perceived traffic noise for most clients.
Soundout Secondary Sliding System
For larger openings, high-use areas, or situations where the window needs to stay operable, the Soundout sliding system is a better fit. It runs on a heavy-duty aluminium track, operates smoothly, and delivers commercial-grade acoustic performance. Common applications include main bedroom windows on busy roads and living areas in apartment buildings.
Both systems are suitable for rental properties, heritage buildings, and situations where replacing windows is not an option. Custom manufacture means they work with almost any existing window shape or size.
A door with gaps around its perimeter or at the base is essentially an open hole for sound. Even a well-constructed door underperforms if the seals are inadequate. Standard hollow-core interior doors typically sit around STC 20-25, which is not much of a barrier.
Acoustic Solid Core Timber Doors
For bedrooms, home offices, or any room where you need real separation, we replace the existing door with an acoustic solid-core timber door. This comes fitted with perimeter seals on all four sides and a drop-down automatic door seal at the base, which lowers itself when the door closes and lifts when it opens. The combined effect of mass and sealing makes a substantial difference to both privacy and noise reduction.
Secondary Sliding Door System
Replacing a sliding door is often impractical. Our secondary sliding system installs internally in front of your current sliding door, adding a second barrier with an air gap between them. Performance is comparable to a full door replacement at significantly lower disruption and cost.
Seal Upgrades
In some cases the door itself is adequate and the problem is purely the sealing. We supply and install acoustic perimeter seals, drop seals, and threshold strips that close the gaps responsible for most of the leakage. This is often the most cost-effective first step.
Wall treatment comes up in two main scenarios: neighbours through a shared wall, and noise travelling between rooms inside the home.
A standard brick veneer wall might achieve STC 40-42. That means conversations on the other side are audible, though not fully intelligible. To get to the point where you genuinely can’t hear next door, you’re looking at STC 55 and above. The gap between those numbers involves adding mass, decoupling, and absorption.
Our residential wall treatments draw on several methods depending on what’s practical in the space:
We assess the wall before recommending an approach, because the right fix depends heavily on the existing construction.
Impact noise coming through a ceiling is one of the most consistent complaints we get. The problem is structural: every footstep on the floor above sends a vibration through the concrete or timber frame and re-radiates it into the room below. Treating the ceiling from below without addressing that structural path only gets you so far.
The most effective ceiling treatments work on both the airborne and impact components:
We’ll be upfront about what’s achievable from below versus what requires working on both sides.
Hard flooring looks great aesthetically but is terrible acoustically. Timber, tile, laminate, and polished concrete all transmit footfall to the floor below with very little attenuation. If you’ve put in new timber flooring and suddenly have an issue with downstairs residents, this is almost certainly why.
Our floor treatment options:
Properly treated floors can also reduce echo in the room itself, which is a secondary benefit most clients notice immediately.
Sleep disruption from environmental noise is a documented health issue, not just an inconvenience. Research consistently links traffic noise exposure at night with elevated cortisol levels, increased cardiovascular risk, and reduced sleep quality even when people don’t consciously wake up.
A bedroom treatment plan starts with working out what the dominant noise source is and how it’s entering the room. Traffic from outside is almost always coming through the window. Noise from an upstairs neighbour is coming through the ceiling. Noise from inside the home is typically through the door or walls.
We combine treatments across all relevant surfaces based on where the noise is actually entering. Most clients see a significant improvement in sleep quality after installation, particularly where traffic noise has been the main issue.
Home theatres are acoustically demanding in both directions. Low-frequency bass from subwoofers passes through almost any conventional wall or floor/ceiling assembly, which means your neighbours hear the boom even when they can’t hear the dialogue. And the internal acoustics of most rooms add echo that reduce the quality of what you’re actually hearing.
We address both sides. The external containment work uses high-mass assemblies with mechanical decoupling to isolate bass frequencies, which are the hardest to stop. The internal acoustic work uses absorption to create a room that sounds as good as it can rather than competing with itself.
Working from home created acoustic demands that residential buildings were not built to handle. A bedroom converted to an office, or a study next to the living area, rarely has the acoustic separation you’d have in a commercial building.
There are two problems to solve simultaneously: keeping external noise out, and controlling the internal acoustics of the room so your voice sounds clear on calls rather than reverberant and distant.
Home offices are one of our more common residential jobs now, and the difference between a treated and untreated space on a video call is immediately obvious to everyone on the other end.
Stratocell Whisper is one of the better acoustic materials we install and it’s worth understanding what sets it apart.
Most acoustic foam is open-cell polyester or fibrous: it absorbs sound reasonably well in a room but does very little to stop sound passing through it. Stratocell Whisper is a closed-cell polyethylene foam with an NRC (Noise Reduction Coefficient) of 1.0 and a Transmission Loss of 13.8 dB, which is exceptional for a foam product.
It’s also moisture-resistant, UV-stable, fire-rated (Group 1 for indoor use), and considerably more durable than traditional standard acoustic products. We use it across residential, commercial, and industrial projects wherever those properties are required.
If noise is affecting how you live at home, call us.
We’ll come to the property, look at what’s happening, and give you a straight assessment of your options and costs.
Transform your space with Australia’s trusted acoustic experts – creating quieter, more comfortable environments since 1999.
Phone: 1300 881 120
Location: Suite 2, 206 Alison Rd, Randwick, NSW, 2031 (by appt only)
Hours: Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm (AEST)
Soundblock® Solutions
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