We have the same problem with our powder room. As a result, I usually steer people to the master bath on the same floor. I never thought about changing the door. Hmmm. Otherwise, perhaps installing a really loud fan to drown out the noise?

Do you have a real wood door (not the new kind, like a real heavy old interior door)
We have a similar setup and it isn't that bad. We have a pretty nice door. Do you have a fan? Some people hook up the fan so that it turns on when you turn on the light and that can cover some noise.
-renee

The door - I bet it's not real hardwood door. It's very light, like it's made of wood chips... I'm not sure what it's called. I think the problem may also be because the floor is wood, and it's less sound absorbing than carpet. Ah.. connecting the fan to the light might help.. Thanks for the suggestions! I'm also wondering if we could do anything else.. I have funny idea, perhaps adding one of those relaxing water sounds to the powder room. So the room will always have water sound anyway! ;-)

I'm about to redo my kitchen which will share a wall with the powder room, so I've been thinking about this same issue, and ran across the link below. Probably this is overkill for what you want, but I thought I'd pass it along anyway.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soundproofing a bathroom

We put the light and fan on the same pushbutton switch so anyone who walks in turns everything on. Rugs, stacks of folded towels, shower & window curtains, baskets of toilet paper, reading material all serve to muffle the sound in some way. Luckily ours is well designed with thick doors but these "extras" make a difference. When I pull the "soft" stuff out of the bath for cleaning, I always notice that it's suddenly loud and echo-y in there. Our bath & separate toilet room (original to house) has tile floor & walls so the echo is bad when it's "empty" in there.

You could really be the talk of the neighborhood by hooking music up to the same switch. Oh! and maybe you could provide singalong lyrics!

Check out this picture. My husband's grandfather (PO) put in this powder room off the original kitchen. The wall didn't even go to the ceiling! No one wanted to use that bathroom!

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Powder Room

Thanks mrblandings for the link!
athomein1914 - great tips!! My powder room doesn't have a lot of 'soft' stuff in it. I think you're right that it'll help. Perhaps putting the singalong lyrics in a frame and put it on the wall! :)
Joyce 6333 - my parents' powder room is like that too! Unfortunately some poor guests had to use it.. I'd better not go into detail.. I don't know what they (my parents) were thinking when they built it!

Having the "soft" stuff in there will help. Anything like that will help absorb sound. Also, make sure you have a solid wood door. We just remodeled our bathroom & made sure we got a solid door. It was twice as much as those imitation wood doors, but it's much heavier, so it should mask sound better. Also, DH got a sweep to close the gap beween the door & threshold. We haven't installed it yet, so I don't know how much it'll help. DH insists that it will.

This is a big issue in my house. Our house was built in 1942, with plaster walls, can't hear through those, but it has those old 2 panel doors, thick wood around the edges but the panels seem thin. When we added on to house last year, my husband insisted on getting matching doors. They were a lot more expensive than the 6 panel doors that are fake but seem very popular. well, you can hear through every room and door now, esp the new part where there is sheetrock rather than plaster. our powder room is small, too small too add much in the way of fabric.

So tell me or send links to the solid wood doors everyone is talking about.

Also we have wood and tile floors, and I think the silly contractor undercut the doors, which lets more sound through.

but I'm really curious what kind of heavy door will not let sound through.

The usual interior doors are called hollowcore doors, and that is what they are. Basically, they are hollow, with perimeter framing, but the two skins are thin plywood.

Go to the building supply store and ask to look at solid interior doors. The mass in the doors will help deaden some of the noise, along with the other suggestions.

Ted

Gosh! I did mine the easy way; I bought those stick-on strips for bottom of the door. They come in white and creme, I think; they are not unsightly. HD or Lowes carries them and you can cut them to length. Be aware that if you want to reposition them, they may take your door's paint off, so try to figure out where you want them first. You must be aware of the floor's slope and position the strip for most coverage at the closed position, but still be able to move the door all the way open without scraping too much. Good luck!

Am in the process of tearing out, one room at a time, the old lathe & plaster & replacing with dry wall (I have little choice - live in earthquake country, and every time there's even a little trembler, I get cracks in the plaster). All the walls are hollow, and transmit sound quite nicely :)

When the walls are open, I also put in the heaviest fiberglass insulation I can find to reduce the transmission of sounds from one room to the next. When I finally get to the bath off of our dining room, I'm going to step up the a type of insulation that is primarily used for home theaters, explicitly for sound proofing.

If you have the space in your bath, you could also consider framing in walls around the toilette and putting a door to it. A mini room just for it would futher reduce the ability of sound to travel. And I imagine you can find quiet flush toilettes what would also help.

Good luck

Fiberglass insulation can be effective in soundproofing. DH did a bit of checking for the least expensive ways of deadening sound.(We had a teenager in the house).

In a related point,we used to get annoyed by the fact that you could hear water rushing loudly through the waste pipe whenever someone flushed upstairs. A plumber who'd been around for quite a while said it was the fault of those PVC pipes. The carry noise so much better than those cast iron pipes they used to use.

To reduce noise coming through the door- Replace the hollow core door with a solid core door then use a transom seal at the bottom to seal the gap at the bottom of the door. Then use a pvc foam tape around the door jam where the door meets the stop. This will seal the door, keep in mind if air cant move neither can sound, only vibration.

I also have read the comment on Fiberglass insulation, there is a far better insulation to use, it is called Cotton Fiber Insualtion this product carries a NRC rating of 1.15% far greater the any fiberglass or mineral wool on the market today. Also for pipes you should use closed cell pipe insulation.
If you would like any more information you can e-mail me direct at randy@soundproofing.org

Business use of he forum is forbidden. It is also annoying for someone to reactivate a thread that is over two years old. If you have something to offer start your own thread and keep your business out of it.

If the business does NOT link to their business, then they are welcome to comment. This website charges money for real advertising. To allow dishonest businesses to sneak in their ads without paying isn't fair to all the companies who pay.

The original post is from the GardenWeb of 10 years ago when business use of the forum in any manner would get your membership canceled. Apparently the offending post resurrected an old thread for the sole purpose of advertising a business and was therefore considered spam and removed by the moderator. The current forum at Houzz seems to encourage advertising which creates a bit of showboating by contractors. It's a sad end to the original GardenWeb.

Here's another old GW thread on reducing sound transmission.

Incidentally, one company that manufactures both solid core and hollow doors published figures showing very little difference in sound transmission between their two offerings. To really effect a difference, you would have to move up to door and frame units such as these. (This is an example only. Not advertising!)

Fitting the door tightly with no undercutting is key. In one home I built with an eye to reducing sound transmission, I used expanding foam between the door jambs and house framing. I also use slip-on foam covers on all supply pipes.

If the toilet makes too much noise you should replace it with a quiet one. Some hardly make a sound.

Personally I rely on probiotics and Metamucil. Your mileage may vary!

How amusimg. Reminds me of when I was very young and it was too cold to use the outhouse in the middle of the night - like Manyº below Zero. We had basins under the beds called thunder pots. Can you imagine why? :-)

FYI, Bathroom doors are undercut because the exhaust fan sucks air out of the room, and the makeup air has to come from somewhere. Adding a door sweep will make your fan work harder / wear out faster.

A solid door helps but be sure it goes as close to the floor as possible. Ours has a 3/4" gap and it allows a lot of noise to escape. Because we like to have a carpet on the floor we have not replaced it but are rethinking things since we are about to update the powder room. Our laundry closet has solid wood doors that practically scrapes the floor. It keeps things very quiet when the laundry is in action.