Isolating laundry room noise?

[Razl]

My laundry room is on the 2nd floor of my house. While the house was under contraction, I installed fiberglass batts to the four walls. The fiberglass works great, but forgetting to insulated the floor was a bad oversight on my part. The floors are hardwood, so I was thinking of slipping some a piece of carpet and pad under the washer and dryer, but I'm not sure how well that would work. The other thought was to get the appliances off the floor by building a wooden platform and slip a piece of foam/carpet between the platform and appliance.

Any thoughts?

 

[TheTanSedan]

What I've been doing is to use rolled "rubber" flooring (actually a foam; HD) and using it underneath washer, dryer, dishwasher. I install the appliance using a carpeted bottom LARGE round "floor protector" (that come in sets; HD) on the rolled flooring. Level. Then re-level after it all takes a set. I never get the level perfect, but the NVH problem fades far away.

This has worked on wood and concrete.

Don't forget sound panels on walls next to and behind the machines. And a light plywood "box" that encloses the machines is likely the best reducer of sound traveling through air.

On dishwashers I have used (underneath factory insulation on metal panels), stick on roofing (see car stereo forums, can't remember name for this Dynamat substitute).

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Using an isolating pad beneath the machine sounds like an excellent way to help dampen vibration. A couple of months ago we got a front loading set, (Duet) It is quieter but the hypervelocity spin is still able totransmit vibrations even on linoleum over concrete. I remeber my last home had an upstairs laundry room.. Vibration was horrid.

 

[Razl]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into it and report back.

 

[rpn453]

The pad sounds like a good plan. If you want to go all-out, you could cover the walls and ceiling in triangle foam blocks to make it into a semi-anechoic chamber!

I plan on installing full insulation in all walls and floors that I touch if I ever renovate anything. I seem to be bothered far more by background noise than most.

 

[Auto-Union]

On walls, a good trick is an extra sheet of drywall screwed over a layer of fibreglass.