Sound Insulation testing for London
London is a massive city containing in excess of 5 million dwellings, many of these dwellings share wall and floor partitions. In this noisy environment it is essential that good acoustic design and construction is incorporated into all new and refurbishment projects along with sound testing for London.
To try and help enforce good acoustic design principles, pre-completion sound testing was introduced in July 2003 to comply with new Approved Document E. The new building regulations required 10% of each party wall/floor construction type to be sound tested on all new build and conversion properties.
We have undertaken thousands of sound tests on converted properties in London and in our experience if the partitions haven’t received any acoustic upgrades the wall and floor partitions – as per the plate below) normally achieve approx. 30-35dB for airborne sound and 68-74dB for Impact Sound. Obviously these figures fall well short of the required 43dB & 64dB as stipulated in Approved Document E. Also, it’s worth taking into account that sound doubles every 10dB, so 30-35dB for airborne sound and 68-74dB for impact sound would be massive failures and careful acoustic design and construction upgrades would be required.
Using our many years’ experience in building acoustics, we are able to offer a total acoustic design and sound testing solution for new and conversion projects. We help many architects and top 10 construction companies with their acoustic design requirements from the largest developments containing hundreds of units through a pair of semi-detached dwellings. We always endeavor to find the best solution, always taking build-ability and cost into consideration.
If it’s a conversion project and you are unsure of the floor/wall construction, we often recommend our ‘sample sound testing service. Firstly, we visit site and undertake sample sound testing to floor and wall partitions, is consists of at least one airborne and impact test to the proposed dividing floor and an airborne test to the dividing wall. Once the sound test results are established we can then offer a targeted acoustic design solution to achieve a successful sound test in London in compliance with Approved Document E.
Whatever the problem we can usually find an acoustic solution that will help you achieve Building Regulation compliance If you have a project that’s needs acoustic design advice or needs sound insulation testing then please contact us at: info@aptsoundtesting.co.uk