Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
Speaker 1: did you know that this very program is also the
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Speaker 1: can go back and listen again and again and again
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Just to go
Speaker 1: to the search window and put in Home with Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: or you can put in Dean Sharp, or you can
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Speaker 1: up hundreds of episodes all waiting there for you that
Speaker 1: you can listen to on demand anytime. It is truly
Speaker 1: truly a home improvement reference library at your fingertips. And
Speaker 1: if you're thinking, hey, this is all great, Dean, I
Speaker 1: am inspired, I'm informed. But what I really need is
Speaker 1: you and Tina standing in our house staring at the
Speaker 1: problem with us. Well, you can do that too. You
Speaker 1: can book an in home design consult with me and
Speaker 1: the tea. Just go to house whisperer dot Design. All right,
Speaker 1: we're going to return to our conversation on controlling sound. However,
Speaker 1: I am going to finish Wendy's question. Wendy had a
Speaker 1: specific concern about as green as possible hardwood flooring, and
Speaker 1: I explain some things about hardwood flooring versus old school
Speaker 1: versus engineered flooring, and I understand there is a you know,
Speaker 1: have no doubt that modern engineered hardwood flooring is the
Speaker 1: best hardwood flooring ever in the history of mankind. Just
Speaker 1: know that, all right, the ware layers excellent, The base
Speaker 1: and the structure underneath the best it's ever been. Yes,
Speaker 1: way better, you old schoolers, way better as far as
Speaker 1: a performing product than solid oak or maple or whatever
Speaker 1: have you. Three quarter inch solid oak or maple floors. Okay, period.
Speaker 1: The end, there there is no competition between the two
Speaker 1: because of the way that wood interacts with moisture. The
Speaker 1: end However, there is always a concern with some people
Speaker 1: of the adhesives that are put together in order to
Speaker 1: form the plywood layers and so on. And Wendy had
Speaker 1: brought up one specific product, and I've got to say,
Speaker 1: I have not used this product yet for a client
Speaker 1: in a house. I know of it. I've heard things.
Speaker 1: I've heard good things and I've heard not so great
Speaker 1: things about the Casablanca collection by Alston Incorporated. They've come
Speaker 1: up with they what they call an an innovative revolutionary
Speaker 1: hardwood hybrid combination. It's a two ply engine two ply floor. Okay,
Speaker 1: and here I was saying, you want nine to eleven
Speaker 1: plies underneath that to wear layer. They basically have the
Speaker 1: war layer and wood underneath it. How do they do
Speaker 1: it well, They basically build the bottom structure of the
Speaker 1: plank like a cabinet door. Essentially, there's a tongue in
Speaker 1: groove rail underneath and filler wood in between. And I
Speaker 1: can see how that would lend a certain amount of
Speaker 1: stability to the product. However, it is difficult for me
Speaker 1: understanding that structure. Two, It's difficult for me to suggest
Speaker 1: that it is as stable as a multiply plywood floor.
Speaker 1: Just from the pure physics of it, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's true. I don't think it's as stable as a
Speaker 1: multiply plywood floor. However, the advantage there being they say
Speaker 1: that they use of completely formaldehyde free adhesives and zero
Speaker 1: VOC materials, making it a top eco friendly green product,
Speaker 1: and that I believe. I believe that's the case. However,
Speaker 1: they are using a lot of solid wood underneath that,
Speaker 1: So there are different ways of evaluating green. If it
Speaker 1: comes down to chemicals and chemical off gassing, if that
Speaker 1: is where your definition for whatever reason of green is,
Speaker 1: then this would be near the top of a list.
Speaker 1: My definition of green extends to the entire manufacturing process,
Speaker 1: including how many trees and what kind of would it
Speaker 1: takes to produce any particular product, and that would put
Speaker 1: this kind of in the middle of that list. And
Speaker 1: because there are multi layer plywoods that are also use
Speaker 1: low formaldehyde or zero formaldehyde and zero VOC materials, by
Speaker 1: the way, so that there it is just to keep
Speaker 1: my promise to Windy about that. By the way, anybody
Speaker 1: who is interested in finding those kinds of low off
Speaker 1: gasing products for them, here's a website that I recommend
Speaker 1: it's a great starting point. My chemical free house, My
Speaker 1: chemical freehouse dot net. Go to my Chemical freehouse dot net.
Speaker 1: You'll find every classification of flooring material there and you'll
Speaker 1: get some input from them and some suggestions as to
Speaker 1: what's out there, what's available, and what to be looking for.
Speaker 1: So there you go. All right, Hopefully that satisfied that
Speaker 1: question in the limited amount of time that I had.
Speaker 1: Oh what are you doing? Oh? I see Keena's like,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden behind me. I'm like, what do
Speaker 1: you behind me for? She's watering Bob. Bob is our
Speaker 1: official in Bob is the name of our in studio plant.
Speaker 1: And now I can hear him drinking. He's very happy
Speaker 1: that you're watering him. All right, let's get back to
Speaker 1: the conversation of controlling sound in your home.
Speaker 2: If you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand
Speaker 2: from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: It's not an easy thing to do. Sound gets in
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of noise out there in the
Speaker 1: world these days. And I'm not just talking metaphorically, I
Speaker 1: mean literally, there's just a lot of noise in the world,
Speaker 1: and we need to get control of it because it's
Speaker 1: no longer in our ignorance. Noise is no longer just
Speaker 1: a subjective thing. It is something that physically affects us
Speaker 1: in negative ways. We know this now, and that's why
Speaker 1: I'm helping you get control of it. Now. We've talked
Speaker 1: about soundproofing. Here are a couple other insulation layers, and
Speaker 1: it's all a layering game. We've talked about mineral wool.
Speaker 1: We've talked about denim insulation. We've talked about open and
Speaker 1: closed cell foam insulation. Open cell foam when it comes
Speaker 1: to sound insulation does better than closed cell foam, and
Speaker 1: the opposite is true when it comes to energy. When
Speaker 1: it comes with energy. When it comes to thermal energy,
Speaker 1: closed cell foam does a better job per inch of
Speaker 1: thickness than open cell phone when it comes to resisting
Speaker 1: heat or cooling. But the open cells, those air pockets
Speaker 1: inside open cell phone does a better job with sound.
Speaker 1: We talked about mass loaded vinyl. It's a great product.
Speaker 1: It's expensive, but it's a great product, especially when space
Speaker 1: to expand and thicken a wall is limited. But it's
Speaker 1: not a miracle product, even though it's displayed that way.
Speaker 1: Here are other simple changes inside the house when it
Speaker 1: comes to insulating solid core doors on the inside of
Speaker 1: your house. Get rid of those hollow core builder graye
Speaker 1: doors that they put in and put in solid doors.
Speaker 1: Solid doors have mass. Mass is an insulator. Solid core
Speaker 1: doors will make rooms quieter. Dual glazed windows, it should
Speaker 1: go without saying. Most of us have them, now some
Speaker 1: of us don't. Still, dual glazed windows two windows with
Speaker 1: a gaseous gap in between is an insulating pocket. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not as good as the wall next to it.
Speaker 1: It never will be. Well, I shouldn't say it never
Speaker 1: will be, because you know science. But right now, even
Speaker 1: the most expensive dual glaze window that you can get,
Speaker 1: the most high tech one, is not equivalent in our
Speaker 1: value or sound control to the solid wall next to it.
Speaker 1: But they help. They help a lot. Because sound energy
Speaker 1: having to move through two panes of glass with a
Speaker 1: little bit of a disruptive air in between, and by
Speaker 1: the way, it's not air inside, it's ar gone gas
Speaker 1: in between those two clanes panes of glass, it has
Speaker 1: to work harder to get through, which means by the
Speaker 1: time it gets the inside, it is significantly weakened in
Speaker 1: its strength. Because sound is an energy game. Just remember
Speaker 1: that dual glazed windows, a double layered dry wall in
Speaker 1: a house. If we're really looking to quiet a room down,
Speaker 1: and we're going to set aside budget to do it,
Speaker 1: then we can without having to build a separate wall
Speaker 1: inside a wall, which is literally recording studio kind of moves.
Speaker 1: Double layered drywall, another layer of drywall with decoupling kulk
Speaker 1: in between decoupling calk. We'll talk about that in a bit,
Speaker 1: but it is a specialized kind of calc in which
Speaker 1: we don't screw the last layer of drywall on. We
Speaker 1: glue it on with a layer of calk that itself
Speaker 1: becomes a vibration dampener in between the layers of drywall,
Speaker 1: and then outside thick tree cover. Thick tree canopies doesn't
Speaker 1: sound proof a yard, but what it does sound Having
Speaker 1: to move through all of those leaves, all around all
Speaker 1: of those branches, it gets diffused and so it can
Speaker 1: definitely lessen the sound. There are sound blocks that can
Speaker 1: be made out of trees. Yet another argument for Dean
Speaker 1: to tell you to plant trees in your yard you
Speaker 1: want a quieter yard of And we'll come back to
Speaker 1: trees when it comes to making the right kind of
Speaker 1: sound in a yard. But if you want to quiet
Speaker 1: noise tree canopies, big thing, block walls better than wood fences. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the sound has a harder time getting through a block
Speaker 1: wall than a wood fence. But I don't make a
Speaker 1: big issue of you know, in order to quiet your
Speaker 1: yard down, you need to surround it with block walls.
Speaker 1: Because most of us don't have the right the allowance
Speaker 1: from the from the city to actually build an eight
Speaker 1: or a ten foot tall block wall around our backyard.
Speaker 1: There are there are height restrictions to block walls, and
Speaker 1: if you if you're zoning in your area only allows
Speaker 1: you to build a six foot tall block wall. Remember
Speaker 1: what I said about air, air goes right over the top,
Speaker 1: and so the difference in cost of your block wall
Speaker 1: to your wood fence. Believe me, you're not going to
Speaker 1: notice that big of a difference in sound deadening. However,
Speaker 1: just saying block walls do a better job of insulating
Speaker 1: you from sound waves than wood fences. The end air
Speaker 1: ceiling when it comes to your house air ceiling. As
Speaker 1: I've said, sound travels on air. When air gets inside,
Speaker 1: then sound comes with it. Hence that whole mass loaded
Speaker 1: vinyl demonstration that I told you about where they make
Speaker 1: this cube out of mass loaded vinyl and they set
Speaker 1: it over a speaker and it just goes silent. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the real trick there is. Yes, mass loaded vinyl
Speaker 1: is a great sound insulating product, but the real trick
Speaker 1: is the fact that they've cut off all the airflow
Speaker 1: from that speaker chamber out into the room where you are.
Speaker 1: If we were to take the mass loaded vinyl cube
Speaker 1: and if I was to drill a half inch hole,
Speaker 1: just one hole in it, believe me, you would hear
Speaker 1: what's going on inside there. It would be quieter, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that silent, dramatic thing. So what does
Speaker 1: that tell you? That tells you that air leakage around
Speaker 1: your house. You've got bad threshold underneath your front door.
Speaker 1: Can you see daylight? Can you feel a draft coming
Speaker 1: through the back patio door. Those aren't just air leaks.
Speaker 1: Those are sound leaks into your house because with the
Speaker 1: air comes the sound. So there are weather just basic
Speaker 1: weather stripping. Improve the weather stripping around your doors and windows.
Speaker 1: Acoustic culk Okay, that's a thing. You can use acoustic
Speaker 1: culk to caulk around leaky windows, the edges of doors,
Speaker 1: what have you. Just know, the more air that comes
Speaker 1: into your house, the more sound that comes into your house.
Speaker 1: That's just science. Okay, So now I want to cross
Speaker 1: over and top that's insulating, insulating, and air ceiling. That's
Speaker 1: what we've covered so far. Now I want to talk
Speaker 1: about something else I had teased at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the show, which is decoupling. And know that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you breaking up with your significant other. I mean, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, it might make your house quieter, but
Speaker 1: that's not the kind of sound reduction I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about is breaking what we call bridges
Speaker 1: and I'm using my air quotes here, the bridges that
Speaker 1: conduct energy from one side of it to the other,
Speaker 1: the bridges, and in technical sound isolation and attenuation and
Speaker 1: insulation concerns, we call it decoupling, breaking the sound bridge.
Speaker 1: If you remember that energy is what sound is, it's energy, okay, traveling.
Speaker 1: Then energy travels through a medium, Okay, in order to
Speaker 1: get from point A to point B. It travels through
Speaker 1: a medium like, for instance, electricity in a wire, in
Speaker 1: a copper wire, copper metal is a fantastic conductor of energy.
Speaker 1: In other words, it carries energy straight on through it.
Speaker 1: Rubber is a terrible conductor of energy, which is why
Speaker 1: the insulation on the outside of an electrical wire is
Speaker 1: a rubberized insulation, which means you can actually touch the
Speaker 1: insulation when there's current running through the copper and not
Speaker 1: get shocked, which means the energy doesn't travel through it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've follown me, all right. So when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about bridges, like a wire from
Speaker 1: one side to another, from a switch to a light.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about things that bridge energy and
Speaker 1: allow sound to get from one place to a next.
Speaker 1: And there are things that we can look at, things
Speaker 1: that we can do to decouple to basically break the bridge.
Speaker 1: Imagine a drawbridge that goes up and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden separates. Now the traffic, you know. We do that
Speaker 1: so that a big ship can get under the bridge
Speaker 1: right pass through, but while it's up, the traffic can't
Speaker 1: go from one side to the other. We have decoupled
Speaker 1: that bridge. We'll talk about that and the stuff in
Speaker 1: your house that is actually bridging sound into a room
Speaker 1: when we return.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI am six forty.
Speaker 1: Talking about that very very most special place in your life,
Speaker 1: your house, which I hope is slowly but surely becoming
Speaker 1: your home. The difference between the two you, how much
Speaker 1: of you is reflected in it, and how much of
Speaker 1: you it reflects back to you. That's what makes a
Speaker 1: house truly a home, the life that you live in it.
Speaker 1: And we're all about it. We're all about it from
Speaker 1: the philosophical meaningful side, and of course from the design
Speaker 1: and the construction side. And we're talking about reducing the
Speaker 1: amount of noise and noise pollution that makes its way
Speaker 1: into your house. So I want to talk about decoupling.
Speaker 1: This is a term, it's a technical term, and it
Speaker 1: means breaking a bridge of conductivity from one form of
Speaker 1: energy crossing over from one place to another. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, just to make the illustration as simple
Speaker 1: as possible. Why can you connect two tin cans together
Speaker 1: with a piece of string and pull that string tight
Speaker 1: and make a actual, really functioning, rudimentary telephone out of it?
Speaker 1: Why does that work? It's very simple. It's because the
Speaker 1: metal of the tin cans is a very conductive material.
Speaker 1: It allows energy to pass through it very easily. Sound
Speaker 1: is energy, and the tight string carries with it, just
Speaker 1: like a guitar string or a piano string carries with
Speaker 1: it a bridge of energy of that sound energy out
Speaker 1: of one can through the string and to the other.
Speaker 1: And how does do kids who think that this is
Speaker 1: a magical thing. What's the big mistake they make? They decide, oh,
Speaker 1: let's make it go around a corner. So they pull
Speaker 1: the string tight around a corner. But guess what the
Speaker 1: corner is doing. It's decoupling, it is getting it. It's
Speaker 1: not allowing the energy to pass around the corner because
Speaker 1: the string isn't that good. It's not that good, so
Speaker 1: it needs that vibration, and that dampens the vibration. Right.
Speaker 1: So this is the kind of stuff we're talking about
Speaker 1: when we're talking about breaking bridges and you're like, where
Speaker 1: are these bridges, Dean, Well, they're all around you. Actually,
Speaker 1: a bridge for sound energy is actually anything that is solid,
Speaker 1: even wood, Okay, Like even the string carries vibration through it.
Speaker 1: And even though wood is not a great conductor of
Speaker 1: electrical energy, you know what, you can send vibrations through it, right,
Speaker 1: And if you put your ear to it, to one
Speaker 1: side of a two by four and I tap on
Speaker 1: the other side with a hammer, you're going to hear
Speaker 1: it right come through. So how do we break the
Speaker 1: bridges down? Well, one thing that we talked about early
Speaker 1: on was the idea of you could build a double wall,
Speaker 1: one wall out here and then another let's say two
Speaker 1: by four wall right next to it, not touching though
Speaker 1: they can't touch. That air gap in between the two
Speaker 1: is critical. Why because the vibration traveling through the one
Speaker 1: wood wall has to not have an opportunity to jump
Speaker 1: to the other one as easily. That's why we need
Speaker 1: the air gap in between. And you think, well, I
Speaker 1: don't have room in my house Dean to build double
Speaker 1: walls everywhere because the rooms get really small. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: totally agree with you. Another way, another step in reducing
Speaker 1: that is you could build what we call a staggered
Speaker 1: stud wall. Imagine not a double two by four wall,
Speaker 1: but a single two by six wall. You use a
Speaker 1: two by six bottom plate and a two by six
Speaker 1: top plate, but you use two by four studs. Stagger
Speaker 1: one set of studs on one side, staggered with studs
Speaker 1: on the other side. The studs aren't touching. Every other
Speaker 1: stud is on one side of the wall or the other.
Speaker 1: And what we've done is we've created a double wall
Speaker 1: using one wall plate. Mm hmmm hmm. You see what's
Speaker 1: going on there, all right, But yet there are other
Speaker 1: ways of just keeping your normal walls, and that is
Speaker 1: the drywall. The drywall that goes on the wall could
Speaker 1: be set in a way that we call sound reducing
Speaker 1: by using resilient channels, which we use metal horizontal channels
Speaker 1: traveling across the studs from top to bottom at regular intervals,
Speaker 1: and then we mount the drywall to those channels. Now,
Speaker 1: what's the secret there. Those channels have little rubber isolating
Speaker 1: gaskets so that when the sound hits the drywall number one,
Speaker 1: it's not directly attached to the wood stud so it
Speaker 1: doesn't transfer the vibration straight through. It does transfer the
Speaker 1: vibvibration into the metal channel, but the metal channel has
Speaker 1: little rubber bumpers for lack of a less more technical term,
Speaker 1: little rubber bumpers that dampen the vibration as it moves
Speaker 1: from the channel to the studs and so on. So
Speaker 1: that's another way. What if we want to do that, well,
Speaker 1: we put on a layer of drywall, maybe we use
Speaker 1: quiet rock drywall. What is that? Uh huh? It is
Speaker 1: sound reducing drywall, same thickness as regular drywall, comes in
Speaker 1: five eighths and also half inch. But what it actually
Speaker 1: is is like a a half inch drywall is two
Speaker 1: quarter inch thick pieces of drywall that have been sandwiched
Speaker 1: together with a Visco elastic polymer in between. What is
Speaker 1: it like a vinyl rubberized gasket in between two layers
Speaker 1: of drywall. So sound reducing drywall decouples the vibration moving
Speaker 1: through the one quarter inch and then it gets to
Speaker 1: that rubberized layer, and it that rubberized layer reduces the
Speaker 1: amount of vibration that gets into the other layer, and
Speaker 1: therefore it is sound reducing drywall. You could put two
Speaker 1: layers of that on your wall. You could put two
Speaker 1: layers of sound reducing drywall with stuck together with Visco
Speaker 1: elastic caulking in between the two. You could put two
Speaker 1: sound reducing drywall layers with metal a resilient channel and
Speaker 1: the little rubber dampening things that I was just telling
Speaker 1: you about. You see, and every time we do it,
Speaker 1: every time we go a little further and a little
Speaker 1: further and a little further, we are bridging. We're breaking
Speaker 1: bridges that conduct energy. We're breaking the bridge. We're breaking
Speaker 1: the bridge. We're making it harder and harder and harder
Speaker 1: for the energy wave to make it through. And if
Speaker 1: we are breaking up the ability of the energy wave
Speaker 1: to bridge through a material, we are reducing the amount
Speaker 1: of sound sound as energy that comes to the other side,
Speaker 1: and therefore we're reducing sound. There it is, you understand,
Speaker 1: sound reducing windows work the exact same way. A sound
Speaker 1: reducing window is not a triple glazed window per se
Speaker 1: in the traditional thermal sense, but it is in one
Speaker 1: sense because it's a dual glazed window, but the outside
Speaker 1: glass is actually two two thinner layers of glass with
Speaker 1: one of those secret viscoelastic polymers a sandwiched between the two.
Speaker 1: So they're doing what the dry wall that I was
Speaker 1: just describing to you does. And as a result, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot less sound transmission, not soundproof, just reduced
Speaker 1: sound transmission. Okay, that's all the insulating and the air
Speaker 1: ceiling and the decoupling. Okay, when we return, let's talk
Speaker 1: about what we do with the sound that is with us.
Speaker 1: Sound absorption inside a room is different than proofing of
Speaker 1: the sound from getting in. What do we do with
Speaker 1: those sound that's already inside a room, for a home
Speaker 1: theater or for just an echoe room, how do we
Speaker 1: keep it from sounding so weird and hollow and echoing
Speaker 1: in here? And then let's talk about outside a little
Speaker 1: bit sound masking all of that noise from town that's
Speaker 1: making its way in. How can we let go of that.
Speaker 1: We'll do all of that when we return, but first.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: All right, let's finish up our conversation on controlling sound.
Speaker 1: We've talked about all the others. If you've missed any
Speaker 1: part of the show, make sure you go back and
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast, which you can do again and
Speaker 1: again wherever your favorite podcasts are found. Simply do a
Speaker 1: search for Home with Dean Sharp, or The House Whisper
Speaker 1: or any of the above. You'll find us. We're there.
Speaker 1: This entire topic will be there for you just minutes
Speaker 1: after we go off the air. All right, sound absorption,
Speaker 1: that's what we talk about when we're acoustically treating sound
Speaker 1: inside a room, not soundproofing it from what's coming in.
Speaker 1: But once the sound that's in there. This studio is
Speaker 1: a great example of treating the room, because when there
Speaker 1: are too many reflective surfaces in a room, what happens
Speaker 1: is that energy wave which comes out, let's say, out
Speaker 1: of my melodious throat, so clear and resonant, it bounces
Speaker 1: off the wall directly across from me, and then the
Speaker 1: ceiling and then the floor, and then all of these
Speaker 1: things start bouncing into each other. And if we were
Speaker 1: to look at that nice, clean, arcing energy wave, suddenly
Speaker 1: we would find it's been fragmented and it's overlaid, and
Speaker 1: it's very fuzzy, and the sound loses its quality. So
Speaker 1: sound absorption in a room is very simple in one sense.
Speaker 1: It's complex in another sense. Of your building a studio
Speaker 1: specifically for recording or li but a normal room, it's
Speaker 1: really about soft surfaces, non reflective furnishings. And if you
Speaker 1: really need something like in a home theater, then you
Speaker 1: add acoustic panels, meaning something that absorbs some that diffuse.
Speaker 1: But essentially we're talking about filling up a house with
Speaker 1: soft surfaces and non reflective furnishings. Why because the sound
Speaker 1: waves hit those, you hit the sofa, and whereas when
Speaker 1: the room was empty, it hit those hard reflective walls
Speaker 1: and it bounced right back it hits the sofa. Some
Speaker 1: of us is absorbed because the sofa is mass, and
Speaker 1: some of it is diffused because the sofa is soft
Speaker 1: and round. And that's how it works. When it comes
Speaker 1: to outside. You can't get the outside noise of the
Speaker 1: town from coming into your yard, no matter how hard
Speaker 1: you try. Now you can put up nice big tree
Speaker 1: canopies to diffuse it, but really the goal of outside
Speaker 1: and how I approach this with clients is masking sound masking,
Speaker 1: which means we take the sound of traffic and which
Speaker 1: is coming over the top of the house and around
Speaker 1: in the sides, and we put a water feature in
Speaker 1: the middle of the yard. The water feature. It just
Speaker 1: so happens that the sound of moving water are ninety
Speaker 1: percent of the same frequencies as the sound of traffic.
Speaker 1: And so what I've done is I've blended the two together.
Speaker 1: And now I've given you a visual queue to look
Speaker 1: at in the yard. You see the water running, and
Speaker 1: so what does it tell your brain? Everything that you're
Speaker 1: hearing in that frequency range is in fact the water
Speaker 1: even though half of it might technically be the traffic,
Speaker 1: but your brain interprets it as moving water. If you
Speaker 1: get to see moving water. Therefore, your brain does not
Speaker 1: react stressfully to that sound. It reacts by destressing. Isn't
Speaker 1: that brilliant? That is some serious sound control magic. In
Speaker 1: addition to that, you add wind chimes outdoor speakers to
Speaker 1: control the music environment. Pastoral sounds like chickens and goats
Speaker 1: and horses and cows and all of this. These are
Speaker 1: non threatening, relaxing sounds. Remember I said at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of the show soundproofing total silence not our goal anymore.
Speaker 1: And this is something we've learned. I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I will say it again. We have learned that
Speaker 1: absolute silence is not the least stressful amount of sound
Speaker 1: in a life. In fact, there are studies that show
Speaker 1: that people who sit in rooms with absolute silence in
Speaker 1: other words, sound absorbing rooms completely soundproof people can only
Speaker 1: hang in there for so long before they start going
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, nutty, and they got to
Speaker 1: get out. You get in a room that quiet, you
Speaker 1: start hearing the beating of your own heart, and that,
Speaker 1: you know, can be interesting for a while. But for
Speaker 1: most normal people it gets a little unnerving. So here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Evolutionarily speaking, we've spent the last two million
Speaker 1: years or so hanging outside, living in an outside environment,
Speaker 1: and what's really programmed into our software is the fact
Speaker 1: that when you wake up in the morning and you
Speaker 1: walk outside, bird song in the air, the sound of
Speaker 1: the wind moving through leaves, okay, and moving water, these
Speaker 1: are all signals to you that all is well in
Speaker 1: the world. Okay. Birds, you know, they don't give off
Speaker 1: their position when there's danger nearby. If there's fire nearby,
Speaker 1: they go quiet. If there are predators nearby, they go quiet.
Speaker 1: So really, you can make the evolutionary argument that silence,
Speaker 1: total silence is actually perceived by most human beings as
Speaker 1: a threat state and a stressful state. What is the
Speaker 1: most relaxing state open air, moving water, gentle breeze, and
Speaker 1: bird song. And so for those of you who are
Speaker 1: saying I'm frustrated because there's no way I'm gonna soundproof
Speaker 1: my backyard, you don't have to plant some more trees,
Speaker 1: break out the bird feeder, get a little fountain going,
Speaker 1: sit out there, enjoy and watch your blood pressure drop.
Speaker 1: Sound masking not soundproofing when it comes to the backyard.
Speaker 1: All right, I am literally right at the edge of
Speaker 1: our time today it has breezed by, as it always does.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you so much for being with me. I
Speaker 1: hope that this lesson on sound control for your home
Speaker 1: is of great benefit to you. Don't forget. We are
Speaker 1: doing special coverage of the situation in Iran and the
Speaker 1: protests downtown starting in just a couple of minutes, and
Speaker 1: we will be doing that throughout the afternoon. So if
Speaker 1: you need to be updated on that, go nowhere. I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave you with this quick thought today. One
Speaker 1: of the most interesting parts of being perceived as an
Speaker 1: expert or an authority on some subject is the influence
Speaker 1: to give other people permission. I'm often told by our
Speaker 1: design clients and our listeners how important it was for
Speaker 1: them that I gave them permission for something, permission to
Speaker 1: design your home to your life, or permission to be
Speaker 1: bold or be brave or unique or be an individual.
Speaker 1: And I know how important that is in my own life.
Speaker 1: I live with somebody who every day gives me permission
Speaker 1: to be fully, unapologetically me. Thank you, Tina, and also
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for that the very fact that I'm taking
Speaker 1: valuable radio time at the end of the show to
Speaker 1: share personal thoughts and feelings is because years ago, my
Speaker 1: brilliant program director and radio mentor gave me permission to
Speaker 1: be one hundred percent me when I am spending time
Speaker 1: with you. So getting permission from those that we love
Speaker 1: or respect, or love and respect it can be life changing.
Speaker 1: And I'm certainly not in charge of you or your home.
Speaker 1: But if you're listening for permission, then let me give
Speaker 1: it to you here. It is pursue your passion, discover
Speaker 1: your joy, live your life on your terms. You do you,
Speaker 1: and then get out there and get busy building yourself
Speaker 1: a beautiful life. Guys, have a great, great rest of
Speaker 1: your weekend and a great week lying ahead. I will
Speaker 1: wave to you this week from the Eastern Sierras, and
Speaker 1: we will see you right back here next weekend. This
Speaker 1: has been Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper. Tune
Speaker 1: into the live broadcast on KFI Am six forty every
Speaker 1: Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and every
Speaker 1: Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime
Speaker 1: on demand on the iHeart Radio app.