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I have a hollow bedroom door in my apartment. I can’t make any modifications to the door that are permanent—nor can I replace it.

Anyone outside the room can hear an interior conversation with crystal clarity.

There are gaps (especially a massive one at the bottom)—I’m wondering the best way to completely and utterly seal this room for sound purposes (while also allowing it to be a usable door).

Most advice I’ve seen advocated for foam weatherproofing—but foam apparently sucks at blocking sound. I’m also wondering if there’s something I can hang or put on my door to stop sound from going out.

What would y’all recommend?

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    If you are renting, consider asking your landlord to upgrade the door to a solid-core door. Offer to pay for the cost of replacement, including labor. Or offer to upgrade it yourself. As of 2018, the materials cost (for a low-end solid-core door, including the seller's time to match the old door's mounting points) is about $ 100 in the Seattle area. According to my local Door Store, removing the door, bringing it in to the door store, and installing the new door is an easy do-it-yourself project: You just need to remove and reinstall the hinges.
    – Jasper
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 23:44

3 Answers 3

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Cut a piece of wood as a filler strip to fill the gap at the bottom of the door. Screw it to the bottom of the door, and when you remove it nobody will see the screw holes since they're on the bottom of the door.

Next add adhesive backed smoke gasket to to top and sides of the door jamb.

Finally, if you still need additional sound proofing, you can put egg crate foam on the inside of the door. I'm not sure how to temporarily attach it though.

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    Egg crate foam won't make a huge difference. A better material would be a soft gel or dense foam mat, like an exercise mat, that could be hung on the door using over-the-door hooks that slide onto the door for hanging clothes.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Apr 8, 2018 at 19:42
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A few options I found..

Option 1: I found this product "Acoustidoor" but I haven't tried it. It seems like a good fit for apartments with picky landlords. Acoustidoor: https://residential-acoustics.com/shop/soundproofing/acoustidoor/ Hint: I was looking at the "AcoustiCurtain" (not the door) and talked to support, and they said this: "You will want to be sure and specify that the Velcro closure be swapped for a magnetic one, so that opening your AcousticCurtain will not make ripping noise and wake up anybody in the room." I'm not sure if the door also uses Velcro like the curtain.

Option 2: You might want to see the answer here, which mentioned Audimute. In the Amazon reviews, I see someone said they could remove the Audimute sweep with heat, but I'd recommend researching it yourself.

Here's the link to the question, which has some solutions: Soundproofing my bedroom door

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Depending on your heat/ventilation, you may NEED that gap most of the time, it's a cheap shortcut for Heat/ventilation/air conditioning return air, quite often. Block it up and the room may not get heated/cooled/ventilated as it should.

Apartment, and you might need the gap, and you can't do anything permanent suggest the "rolled up towel" or "draft snake" (long narrow sandbag) approach when you actually need sound isolation, and removing it when the lack of ventilation becomes a problem.

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