Simple Tricks To Improve The Acoustics In Your Home

No one wants to feel like they're living in a car park... Right?

Acoustics are often overlooked in home design—until you find yourself struggling to hold a conversation in someones echo-filled home—it's probably something you yourself have given little thought to. Modern, minimalist spaces with hard surfaces, expansive windows, and a lack of soft furnishings can cause chronic sound issues, making comfort and connection hard to achieve.

Concrete or tiled floors can be particularly troublesome, as they tend to reflect sound rather than absorb it, leading to increased reverberation and echo. This often results in poor speech intelligibility and a generally noisy environment. Additionally, these materials are excellent conductors of impact noise—such as footsteps, furniture being moved, or dropped objects, which can easily travel through the structure and disturb rooms below or nearby. While concrete and tile floors are modern and popular choices, (especially when installing underfloor heating), it's important to address their acoustic drawbacks. If you choose this type of flooring, consider breaking up the space with plenty of soft furnishings to help absorb sound and reduce noise transmission.

It’s easy to assume smaller homes have fewer acoustic issues, but that’s only partly true. Low frequencies can actually be more problematic in compact spaces, where there isn’t enough room for sound waves to fully develop and disperse. Parallel walls in small spaces can cause issues such as standing waves, which may result in echoes / flutter echoes (a rapid, repeated echo caused by sound reflecting between two parallel surfaces). Acoustics is complex, but we encourage you to explore the basics as you plan your design—it makes a real difference to your living comfort.

For those of you who have got your acoustic nerd on, we've found some great resources that dig deep into the subject:

How the sound in your home affects your mood

The Science of Acoustics

The Impact of Room Size and Surface Properties on Acoustics

Room Acoustics Guide

When it comes to your design and your acoustic environment consider the following:

• Room Size and Shape: The size and shape of a room can impact how sound waves travel and interact with surfaces. Breaking the surfaces of parallel walls is important in certain rooms. Ceiling heights can also determine how a room sounds.

• Materials: The materials used in the construction of walls, floors, and ceilings play a significant role in determining how sound is absorbed or reflected within a space. Materials like carpets, curtains, and soft furniture will help dampen sound.

• Furniture & Furnishings: The placement of furniture within a room can influence how sound is absorbed or reflected. Soft furnishings will help absorb but even bookshelves on a wall will help break reflective surfaces and look great at the same time!

• HVAC Noise Control: Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems can contribute to unwanted background noise in a home. Choosing a quiet HVAC system or implementing noise control measures around them is essential for maintaining good acoustics.

• Sound Reflection: If you’re really into acoustic design, strategic placement of reflective surfaces can help direct sound where it's needed within a room. These surfaces can be adjusted to control the dispersion of sound.

*Slightly off topic but you can also use reflective surfaces to create a unique audio environment. For example if you place a speaker in the corner of a room facing the wall or ceiling the reflective sound will result in a very different experience than if the speaker were pointing directly into the space — if you get it right, the result is a truly immersive audio experience! Give it a go.*

Remember acoustics are the secret sauce to a home’s atmosphere, but good acoustics shouldn’t come at a significant cost, it’s all about the choices you make through the design process and then with your furnishing choices.