Technical Focus
IMPROVING WELLBEING WITH GOOD ACOUSTICS When sound is overlooked, it can be to the detriment of an employee’s wellbeing and their ability to concentrate, work collaboratively and productively or communicate. It can be the key to the success of a new facility and is why it has become so important to understand a product’s acoustic performance and the manufacturer’s data being offered. Joe Cilia, Technical Director at the Finishes & Interiors Sector, looks at how good acoustics can improve occupier wellbeing and to ensure good acoustics are achieved, and how specifiers, designers and contractors can rely on the Acoustic Verification Scheme to provide undeniable data to ensure performance is achieved. of the biggest O neworkplace grievances and a leading source of dissatisfaction within the environmental conditions of an office is that of noise. Noise impacts people’s behaviour making it difficult to focus, and it can lead to additional stress. It’s an issue that has become particularly important due to the proliferation of open and agile working environments. When you create an environment that manages noise, you are instantly helping to create an environment that promotes wellbeing and in doing so, creates a happier and more productive workplace. When looking at the design of office interiors, architects and designers need to consider the acoustic needs of the interior space early in the
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design process. Sound can be controlled either through absorption, which deals with reverberation within the space and makes it a better place to work in; and through insulation, which deals with the control of sound from one space to another. Office buildings commonly feature hard reflective surfaces such as glass, concrete and plaster which will require specifiers to counter that with sound-absorbing products such as ceilings, rafts and wall panels to reduce reverberation and dampen unpleasant noises in the environment. The sound absorption properties of these materials can be impacted on site by the way in which they are installed. For example, if products are tested with a void behind them, but installed
directly against the slab or a wall, it will have a detrimental impact on the absorption performance on site. A common source of noise disturbance is the transmission of sound through walls or floors. Poor sound insulation (also referred to as attenuation) between adjacent rooms will result in disturbance and a loss of privacy. Partitions and cavity barriers are generally used for sound insulation and provide privacy or a division from a noisy and potentially disturbing activity. The inherent challenge for designers, architects and contractors is being able to understand the acoustic claims, what conditions the products should be installed and ensure that the results aren’t misleading.
The Acoustic Verification Scheme With the acoustic performance of products so important and in a bid to curb growing incidents of ‘passing off’, a new Acoustic Verification Scheme has been created by the Finishes and Interior Sector (FIS) in response to confusion and concerns related to the comparability of acoustic airborne sound insulation claims. For FIS, the journey to the acoustic verification process began with operable walls. It found users were complaining these walls were not performing in the way that was expected. This was partly due to the installation process and partly due to it being the only partition that was dismantled and re-erected on a regular basis by non-trained staff. If the acoustic seals are not exactly right, acoustical integrity can be compromised by leakage and flanking sound coming through. FIS also found evidence of falsification, and in some cases, tests revealed that manufacturers were treating an operable wall like a normal fixed partition, and physically sealing every joint. It actually needed to be tested like a door and operated five times before the test commenced to demonstrate it was completely operable. This made a huge difference, enough to put some manufacturers in front of their competitors. As part of the FIS acoustic verification scheme, which provides a method in which independent acoustic consultant Cundall verifies acoustic test data,
