Acoustic Consultant

Acoustic consultants are heavily involved in the industrial sector. For example, many large manufacturing firms have noisy processes, construction noise, as well as plant and equipment. This can impact both the nearby environment and employees working on-site.

As acoustic consultants, Peninsular Acoustics Limited have many large industrial clients, with periodic monitoring of the site boundaries regularly undertaken, designed to protect the nearest noise-sensitive residential dwellings from broadband and low-frequency tonal noise.

We also act as acoustic consultants demonstrating compliance for clients with The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005.

The leisure sector has a wide variety of acoustic consultant involvement, from the acoustic design of a cinema complex ensuring the paying customer has the desired acoustic experience, to the noise assessments for planning applications of padel tennis courts, which is growing rapidly in the UK.

Noise Assessments are regularly required by acoustic consultants to support planning applications or respond to planning conditions, to achieve a successful application.

A noise survey for a new bar is likely to involve a noise breakout assessment to demonstrate if music and people noise is likely to impact the surrounding noise-sensitive residential dwellings.

Restaurants and cafes, while also requiring noise breakout assessments, typically require a plant noise assessment concerning kitchen extract ventilation ducting to demonstrate their impact in accordance with BS4142:2014.

In recent times, there has been a significant trend for micro-pubs and extended opening hours of cafés to act as function room venues in the evenings. Again, this requires an acoustic consultant to deal with the planning requirements.

One complication and limiting factor overlooked by many new bar owners is connected noise-sensitive dwellings., For example, a new proposed ground floor bar with residential dwelling at 1st floor level.

The expectations of noise levels within the premises by the applicant may be impossible to achieve in reality. However, the involvement of an acoustic consultant is critical to maximising the sound insulation of structures, while advising the clients of the limitations of the selected location for their bar.

The acoustic environment in nurseries, schools, colleges and universities is critical to the learning experience.

Building Bulleting 93 (BB93) is a requirement of Approved Document E 2003. The performance standards in BB93 refer to sound insulation performance between rooms and spaces, reverberation time within rooms, internal noise levels within rooms from external sources etc.

Within the healthcare environment, there are many different room types - all with differing sensitivity to noise levels, and producing different noise levels themselves.

HTM 08-01 2013 Acoustics, provides a guide to high-quality acoustic design in the health care setting, providing design criteria to be achieved.

Our team of acoustic consultants at Peninsular Acoustics can design to achieve these requirements so the end users have an acoustically pleasant space for the individual room function to be carried out with no issues.

One example would be that a consultation room needs good speech privacy. Another example would be operating theatres that need to be protected from noise and vibration sources. Trust our experts to provide the right solution for you and your organisation.

The acoustic environment within offices is critical to employee productivity. The critical items normally considered in good office design are sound insulation, internal noise levels, reverberation time and speech privacy.

Involving an acoustic consultant early in the design of offices is critical for a good working environment. Typical guidance documents referred to concerning office design include:

• British Council for Offices (BCO) Guide to Specification
  Finishers and Interiors Sector (FIS) Guide
• Breeam UK Refurbishment 2014
• BS8233:2014

We have vast experience providing acoustic solutions for offices - so if you require sound insulation for your office, or an assessment of room acoustics, contact us today.

 

Acoustic Consultancy with hotels is critical to the typical mixed-use environment within a hotel. Hotels typically have their own bars and or restaurants, plant rooms, receptions, function rooms and meeting rooms. All of these can generate high environmental noise levels, and all need to operate normally without impacting each other or the guests staying in the bedrooms.

It is common for hotel brands to have their own standards, which have been set above typical Building Regulations Document E 2003 standards, to ensure the mixed-use development can operate without issues and complaints.

Building Regulations Document E 2003 would typically only cover sound insulation between spaces, while brand standards would enhance this performance and have requirements between different room types.

Brand Standards would also look at internal noise levels from external sources and internal sources such as mechanical services/ ventilation noise. They would also consider reverberation time for different room types.

Plant and equipment are being installed around buildings of all types both residential and commercial. The installation of new plant and equipment is basically the introduction of a noise source into an area.

Noise Assessments are typically required in accordance with BS4142 2014. It is noted that for new Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP) the MCS020 micro-generation scheme for ASHP-permitted development rights can be referred to.