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Soundproofing is simple. In Theory. All you have to do is put several inches of sound resistant material in the floor or wall cavities of adjoining rooms or properties. Simple.
In reality, things tend to get a little more complicated. The fact is most cavities are just not big enough to accommodate several inches of soundproofing material. The contemporary value-engineering ethos is, quite understandably, determined to reduce the quantities of materials used and, where possible within Building Regulation controls, to reduce the heights and widths of floors and walls respectively. All of this is done in the name of delivering greater value to the customer.
This is a perfectly laudable activity but it can present a challenge to acousticians and soundproofing solutions suppliers, particularly where height constraints are applied to floors.
At McTaggart and Mickel’s award-winning Greenan Views development on the Ayrshire coastline, these height constraints presented a significant challenge. For the cottage flats that formed part of the development, a non-typical 195mm-deep I-joist was used. This meant that the typical solution of installing 78mm FFT1 acoustic bearers to meet Section 5 of the Scottish Building Standards was not possible.
Working closely with the McTaggart and Mickel team, along with Chris Steel, Senior Acoustic Consultant at the multiple award-winning Robin Mackenzie Partnership, CMS Danskin not only offered their innovative SoundDeck CLD system as a potential solution, they also offered to adapt it to meet the challenge of the development’s height restrictions.
Designed specifically for new-build, timber-frame apartment floors and ceilings, SoundDeck CLD uses the principles of Constrained Layer Damping (CLD) and comprises a timber-based, high-performance acoustic overlay board combined with an acoustic ceiling hanger. In this case, however, the ceiling hangers were replaced with resilient battens.
Installation of the 98 systems was quick and easy, with the boards installed on top of the OSB deck, with flanking strips around the perimeter, and resilient bars installed below to form the acoustic ceiling component of the system. The boards were simply glued together at the tongue and groove joints using CMS Danskin’s D3 Adhesive.
Not only did the adapted SoundDeck CLD provide the crucial 75mm height saving, it also exceeded sound insulation requirements. The project only needed to meet the pre-2010 regulations, but would have easily met the revised 2010 acoustic performance requirements.
What’s more, because it is a system and not one of a number of disparate elements, the number of deliveries, and subsequent loading-out times, was reduced, as was the amount of material on-site.
With such a positive experience of the SoundDeck CLD System on the prestigious Greenan Views development, McTaggart and Mickel and other timber-frame apartment builders could benefit from future applications of this innovative system, with the potential to reduce brick courses or enhance ceiling-to-floor heights on subsequent timber-frame apartment projects.
