Soundproof Pocket Doors

Soundproof pocket door is an oxymoron. You can do a search on this forum for last threads. It comes up about once a year.

Not only does it need to be a heavy door it needs to have an airtight seal on all four edges. If you can figure out how to do that you have a chance of achieving some level of sound containment. If you can come up with some kind of seals that pop out on all four edges once the door is in position you might have a winner. The problem is if they are fixed in position you really can't slide the door to open and close it.

Then there is the problem of the pocket recess for the door and how to make that section of the wall as soundproofed as the rest of the wall structure.

I don't think it is impossible, but certainly an engineering challenge.

Our home has mostly pocket doors and I have experimented with soundproofing several times over the years ..

The only way I found that actually had a sonic benefit was creating a recessed trim frame that the door would slide into when closed .. and lining it with heavy felt .. it provided a good deal of soundproofing over the standard pocket door mounting .. the problem was 1) the sill area was also trimmed out for the door, thus you had to step over it when entering the room 2) in order to get a good seal, the door became very difficult to open and close .. 3) the felt would eventually wear down and need to be replaced 4) There was no way in my application to really get good isolation within the "pocket" in the wall ..

I eventually gave up and installed a conventional solid core door with weatherstripping ..

It would be more complicated than a sliding glass but heres Two ways how I would design a heavy sealed pocket door that slides to the right.

The first would have two heavy doors with a space between. They would be linked together. Each door would have two wheels and sit in tracks with two curves in the tracks. They would work like sliding van doors but double. The doors would slide apart as the door closes to seal to the front and back of the deep doorframe and to make a bigger airgap between the doors. As the doors open they would slide back together to fit the narrow space between double studs.

The second would have a single door between double studs. Seals on the right sides of the door frame would have a little clearance with the door. The right end of the door would be thicker than the rest of the door to hit those seal when closing. There would be a seal on the left end of the door to hit the frame.
There would be seals near the top and bottom of the door that would touch the sides of the upper track and lower track. Most of the weight would be on a pair of wheels below the door (ball bearing type) and not on the seals or track sides. The seal coud have a layer of uhmwpe tape which is slippery like teflon but more durable. For lower friction the seal could be set slighty above the track to barely touch and two sections of the track cut and replaced with rubber. When the wheels get to the end of travel they sink down slightly into the rubber and the door drops slightly puting some weight on the seals.

If the door or doors slid freely with low friction then a soft close mechanism could be installed; basicaly hydraulic shock absorbers several inches long that stop the door or doors gently and a spring catch that makes sure it closes all the way.

There would be a handle near the left end of the door. The door frame on the right would be curved oval a foot instead of being straight up and down so the handle would not have to slide into the wall.

What about fabricating a track so that the pocket door would move towards a seal when its in its closed position and back away from it when you open it? Kind of like the sliding door on a van.

That won't work well either. Sorry (unless the door is a sliding door not recessed into a pocket.)

Seems like every 18 months the "soundproof pocket door" concept comes up like this with a flurry of ideas, and no solution. Easier to create a perpetual motion machine.

You're better off installing a sliding glass door with a vinyl frame. The window shop should be able to build the door so that one pane of glass is laminated for improved sound reduction.

I had one designed, but my carnot engine kept failing on it.

Hahahahaha!!!!

I thought I read somewhere that Monster sells one.



Or was it Bose......?

Even at that, no where near the performance of a good solid core door much less a speciality door.

The pocket doesnt have to be recessed. You could install a sliding door on the outside of a wall then put plywood in front of the door to make an external pocket.


However i still think the double pocket door would work the best. Imagine for instance two vans parked side by side 6" apart. Connect the top/bottom/front/back edges of the two vans with some steel to form a hollow sealed cavity between the vans. Then connect the doors with a scissor link so they can slide in unison.

Now take that idea and use it in a double stud wall. The solid pocket doors would have a 6" air gap between them when closed. When opening each door would recess 3" in to meet, eliminating the wide gap and then slide back between the double studs.

A straight track could be used if the doors were mounted on 3" swing arms but i think it might be easier to cut several curved tracks into the floor with a router.


perpetual motion is the new godwins law.

Here is a 1200 pound pocket door for a panic room. Maybe it would work.

Exterior grade sealed pocket doors exist!

http://www.slungdoor.com/big_doors_gallery/?g=2

http://www.slungdoor.com/suspension_...ther-proofing/