How to find an acoustic 'leak' in my home

For some reason the master bedroom in the house seems to have no acoustic insulation from outside. When my neighbor is out in their gravel driveway it sounds like they're 4ft away.

The other end of the house muffles outdoor sounds quite nicely. The windows are relatively new throughout the house and were replaced at the same time.

How does one go about finding how/where my house needs insulation or carpentry changes to cut down on the outside noise?

I'm hoping there's some technology similar to a thermal camera that can help identify

Any help is appreciated.

 

I don't know the answer, but I have a similar problem. Hopefully someone knowledgeable can chime in with an answer.

 

I don't know that this will work, but here's what comes to mind:

It could be that the loud rooms lack thermal insulation. Much of the sound deadening presumably comes from the thermal insuation. So look for a lack of thermal insulation because its easier to find. Get a non-contact thermometer (the kind you point at something and it tells you its temperature). On either an extremely hot or extremely cold day, walk through your house and check the interior temperature of the exterior walls.
Be mindful of HVAC vents blowing close to the wall (it may make that section of wall look better than it is), or sun/shade differences on the outside. But if you have walls with consistent interior ventalation and consistent exterior sunlight, they should have a similar heat transfer through them. A wall showing a higher heat transfer has insullation issues.
This will work best on the hotest or coldest days of the year.

 

The above - plus check for tiny crack and holes - maybe on a very windy day with smoke or your face (not kidding). A sealed house is a quiet house.

 

Is this any type noise or only certain sounds ?? How far away is your neighbors driveway ??

Do you have nice heavy drapes at the windows??

If have had some windows over the years cause some sounds to be amplified .

Your in the bedroom your not likely to have a very high ambient noise level as compared to the rest of the house

Is this a new to you bedroom ?? I know in my case it takes me quite some time to adjust to new sounds .

A female friend staying over night after fun and games I may as well not even try and sleep the strange noises that don`t belong wake me up.

Yet being used to the Air Compressor kicking on I don`t even hear it nor the Gun Fire from the Gun Club 1/2 a mile away.

Curious how this plays out.

 

Not sure where you're located but you may have some luck looking for thermal camera rentals near you. Much like what @ksJoe mentioned above, this'll give you a better picture of what's lacking in your walls.

-J

 

A thermal camera will let you see if there's literally insulation missing from your walls. I had a condo once where a whole 16" portion of the wall lacked any batting, floor to ceiling, totally hollow exterior wall! In Colorado winters you didn't even need a camera, it was so stupid cold right there. I don't know how nobody noticed for 25 years, but I probably tore into that wall by the second snowfall.

A good consumer camera is made by Seek IR, it plugs into your phone, for around 250.

Identifying sound sources is a lot harder. A laser vibrometer can identify walls, windows, etc, that are radiating sound into the room. You could probably hire a specialist to do a survey. But even then it's not always intuitive what repairs will get the desired results.

I've had a construction project at work once where we were building a mechanical chase amidst a larger room of sensitive equipment. Air compressors, vacuum pumps, etc. We wound up pouring a separate floating slab there, and lined the room with a floating wall of MDF, lots of isolators and acoustic foam everywhere. It was a huge pain in the ass, but it was amazing how loud it could be in that room, and how quiet it was once we closed the door!

 

A thermal camera may help you, but they only way to really find and fix the problem is going to be to open the walls up. You can use some Rock Wool insulation that with help with an R factor and noise.

 

Check your eaves and ceiling insulation too it could be bouncing up into a missing eave panel and coming in from overhead.

Beyond that it may just be a perfect penetrating frequency you may have to put in some sort of decoupling layer.

Hang some heavy blanket or tapestries an inch or two off the wall on that side of the room