Door or seals in a rental property

Reading along while waiting for coffee, a neutral thought: define the goal before buying hardware. For sleep, you’ll notice any reduction faster; for home office calls, quieting speech bands matters most. A quick “light test” (stand in the dark and look for light around the door) shows where leaks are, and a tissue by the edge will flutter if air is moving. Panels inside the room help echo but won’t stop hallway sound; the door assembly (leaf + frame + seals + undercut) is the workhorse. Also worth asking management whether a slab swap counts as “like-for-like” or needs approval.

I literally did this swap last month. Started cheap: adhesive perimeter gasketing and an automatic drop seal under the door—big leap for speech leaking from the corridor. Later I replaced the hollow-core with a solid-core slab and that tightened the low/mid frequencies even more, but only after I tuned the latch side and threshold so there were no gaps. Also check the frame: tighten hinge screws into the stud and add a sweep or threshold if needed. If you want a quick sanity check, I got a friendly walkthrough from New York Soundproofing—they explained why mass + airtightness beats either alone and helped me phrase a simple ask for my landlord. If approval’s tricky, try seals first; if you can change the leaf, do both for the best result.