Residential Air, Wall and
Ceiling Noise
Condominium and apartment residents almost always have the same two
issues:
1.) I can heard the neighbors through the walls when they talk, watch
television, listen to the stereo, etc.
2.) The people walking above me must have the heaviest feet on
earth.
The two issues are related to sound transmission and impact
noise. They can be relatively easily accounted for during the
design phases of a building but are very difficult to correct after a
unit is constructed. Selecting appropriate wall and ceiling
constructions in the design phase can eliminate many headaches
(literally) later. Other types of problems that can occur
are often related to noisy roof top air-conditioning units. A
couple examples of residential noise projects where we've been the
acoustical consultant are shown below.
Retirement
Condominium, Sarasota, Florida
Development
of silencing. In this luxury retirement community, some
residents were annoyed at the noise from this rooftop unit. We
measured the sound pressure levels and developed a silencer design to
reduce noise on resident's patios by several decibels.
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High-rise
Condo, Daytona Beach, Florida
Residents
can hear "too much" through the bedroom walls. Power
Acoustics, Inc. performed
noise tests of the walls and determined the Field Sound Transmission
Loss (FSTC). We
then used the data to help design a secondary wall system that added
several decibels of noise reduction helping to reduce complaints from
the neighbors.
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