Managing household noise during the coronavirus quarantine
No matter where you live, chances are you’re at home in quarantine for awhile to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
If you live in an apartment, you probably have neighbors above, below, or next door to you. And if you live with your family, you might have a full house — with kids taking classes from home while you’re trying to focus on work.
You’ve probably never used your home so intensively for so long. So you’re going to need some peace and quiet — and so will your family and neighbors. Let’s consider some ways to reduce unwanted noise while we’re staying at home.
Phone calls and online meetings
Whether it’s Zoom, Webex, or phone calls, chances are that you’re going to talk to other people throughout the day. If you live in a household with other people trying to work or study, this goes without saying: don’t use the speakerphone! Turn the audio down. Get a headset and use it.
You can also improve on the audio quality from your home for anyone who videoconferences with you online by using a USB microphone with pick-up pattern options (to reduce ambient sound) like the Blue Yeti or the Audio Technica 2100, which is a USB microphone with a dynamic pickup pattern. A dynamic pattern records audio from the front, and filters out most of the ambient sound that comes from the rear and sides.
If you need to tune out noise in your household but you still need to concentrate on work or studies, try streaming some relaxing chillout music or use an app like Study, as recommended by the Acoustic Bulletin.
Everyday household noise
A lot of recommendations in Soundproofist’s “Simple ways to reduce noise between neighbors” also apply here. The same drawer bumpers, rug pads, and anti-vibration pads will dampen noise and hopefully bring you some peace of mind, especially if you have energetic kids at home. If your home has a lot of hard surfaces and not much sound absorption and you need something quickly, try draping some towels around.
If you’ll be working at home for a long time, consider buying some inexpensive sound-absorbing wall panels from companies like Audimute (in the US), or Muffle (in Europe). You can also buy some felt pads from a company called Felt Right (US) or Filzfelt (Germany). Just stick them to your walls with double-sided tape. They also absorb sound. And the good news is you can buy as few or as many as you want in different sizes and mix and match them in different patterns.
Quiet exercise indoors
Obviously, doing high-impact exercise indoors will probably annoy everyone in your vicinity. Try yoga or Qi Gong — you’ll find plenty of videos online. Some instructors moved their classes online and hold Zoom sessions. This is where a Bluetooth wireless headset will be your friend — you can move around freely and hear the instructor without bothering anyone else.
You can also do sit ups, pull ups, press ups, weights, lunges, and stretches without being too disruptive. Plenty of sites offer quarantine-at-home exercises, like this one from the World Health Organization.
It’s also not impossible to get some aerobic exercise indoors. For example, you might have room for a stationary bike in your garage or a spare room. Space is limited where I live, so I got a very quiet under-the-desk cycle. But this is very important — you need to put anti-vibration pads under this kind of equipment! Even if the airborne noise sounds quiet to your ears, the vibration will go into the framing of your building and it will transmit low-frequency noise and sound like a drone to everyone else.
This is an opportunity to enhance your home and make it a place where you can relax, be productive, or stay fit with some easy acoustic modifications. Enjoy it!