Noise Control in Green Building

A Green Home is Quiet

As a metropolitan area, and as a country, our streets and airports are busier and noisier even as we build higher density housing or residential over retail or office, that, by nature, create noise for residential occupants. In short, noise control is becoming more and more important to our lives and to the comfort of our green homes. If falls under the auspices of green building.

In green building, the interaction of building shapes, materials, and openings, as well as the people and other animals occupying the homes, makes noise control more complex. In addition, the location of the home, say along a busy street or adjacent to a park, determines what outside noises exist.

There are two principal types of transmission generated inside the building.

1. Airborne sounds travel through walls or floor/ceiling assemblies and can emanate from either human activities in adjacent living spaces or from mechanical noise within the building systems. 

2. Transmission of sound through the building itself. The most common example of this type of noise is the footsteps of occupants in living spaces above. This type of noise is more difficult to control in green building.

Important Noise Control in Green Building

In central air systems, it is important to baffle any ducts that transmit sound between different building areas. Shock mounting of systems to control vibration might also be necessary.

There are specific protocols developed for plumbing systems, especially for water supply lines, to create isolation clamping of pipes within building walls. 

In some green building situations, it is only a matter of utilizing the best quieting technologies available. Regardless, the green builder seeks the most cost effective building methods to create a quiet interior (normally 45 dBA). 

The best ways to control noise use a combination of these four techniques:

• Absorb it.
• Block it.
• Break up its path.
• Isolate it.

Noise can affect more than comfort, though, as it can become hazardous, especially at high decibels over extended periods of time.

More about noise attenuation and control.
Noise as hazard.

Do you need a green builder/remodeler
 in North Central Texas 
or the Dallas-Fort Worth area? 
Contact Terry Jensen 
972 251-1532 or 817 545-0140