Roughly 25% of all workers in the United States have been exposed to hazardous noise levels at work. Building noise in workplaces can cause a lack of concentration, higher stress, and generally cause problems with people’s hearing. The same is true for home noise.
Managing noise levels is important for any business or homeowner. If you’re not sure where to start, then you’ll need to do a little bit of research into how experts measure and treat noise levels.
Here’s your guide.
What is a Decibel?
Before we look at sound insulation, let’s start with the basics. The loudness of sounds is most commonly measured in decibels.
A decibel is a unit of intensity of sound, often abbreviated as dB. Decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, meaning that each step up on the scale is 10 times as loud as the last.
For example, the quietest audible sound would be 0dB, a sound ten times louder than that would be 10dB, and a sound 10,000 louder would be 40dB.
How Loud are Common Sounds?
It can be somewhat difficult to imagine what 10dB or 40dB actually sounds like, so it can be very helpful to contextualize it with some everyday sounds.
Normal human breathing is around 10dB, the hum of a refrigerator is around 50dB, an alarm clock comes in at 80dB, and an ambulance siren clocks in at a huge 120dB.
How are Noise Levels Measured?
There are professional companies out there whose job is to come round and conduct a noise survey of a building.
There are several steps to their fairly complicated job. Put simply, they’ll walk around the entire site and take several measurements with sensitive audio measurement equipment.
Through these measurements and surveys, they’ll be able to identify problem areas and advise you on how to acoustically treat them.
Understanding STC Ratings
One important measurement when your building is being surveyed is STC ratings. STC stands for sound transmission class. STC ratings are used to compare the loudness of a sound from one side of a wall compared to the loudness of the same sound on the other side of the wall.
They are important to ascertain how much noise is traveling through walls in a particular building or housing area. The results of your STC measurements will be presented to you in an STC ratings chart.
How are Noise Levels Treated?
Once your building has been surveyed for noise levels, you can move on to the process of treating any problem areas.
There are a number of options available for dealing with problem areas in your building. The most common method is to install acoustic baffles that help deaden the noise in a given room.
Stay on Top of Noise Levels
Excessive noise levels in a place of work or home can cause huge amounts of stress and be potentially damaging to people’s health. If you’re trying to deal with noise levels in the workplace, then it’s especially important to keep them at a manageable level so your business can run as efficiently as possible.
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