Sound testing

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Sound testing for Part E compliance

Excessive noise can be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of building occupants – that’s why building regulations require sound testing for new-build and conversion projects.

At Darren Evans, we can carry out acoustic testing to ensure compliance with local requirements, and we can also provide advice and guidance to help you build better, more comfortable buildings for end-users.

What are the requirements for sound testing?

Across the UK, the devolved building regulations all address the importance of minimising sound transmission between adjoining dwellings and in schools.
  • England and Wales: Part E of the Building Regulations and Approved Document E
  • Scotland: Standard 5.1 of the Technical Handbook
  • Northern Ireland: Part G of the Building Regulations
These regulations require that buildings be constructed in a way to limit the transmission of source noise between different areas of the building – particularly through walls and floors. This is to ensure the health and safety of building occupants, and testing must be carried out to confirm that these requirements have been met. Depending on the local area, additional requirements may also be in place to further reduce noise from commercial premises and dwellings.

Achieving acoustic compliance

Darren Evans consultants are SITMA accredited to carry out comprehensive acoustic testing to confirm compliance with national building regulations and local authority requirements. The forms of testing to be carried out should be confirmed by building control, and we will provide support to ensure these requirements are met. Our fully qualified team of consultants will work with the project team from the early stages to include good acoustic design from the start. This can help a building to not only meet the building requirements, but to exceed them where desired, ensuring a more comfortable and healthier interior environment for building users. We can also work with Robust Details, an alternative to pre-completion sound testing that helps to avoid uncertainty and ensures the best acoustic solutions are specified. Early acoustic consultation is important for achieving compliance and can save time and money during the project. We can also work with clients who are dealing with sound test failures, providing advice and guidance to set things right. You can see examples of the work we’ve done by viewing our case studies.

Top tips for sound testing

  • Have an acoustical design review at an early stage. When the architect puts detailed drawings together, get an acoustic consultant to look at them to make sure they comply with the various requirements of sound tests.
  • Make sure your site is quiet when we test. This is important as having high background noise from trades both inside and outside of the units can have a massive effect on the test data.
  • Make sure the flanking elements to the main detail that’s being tested are robust enough. Weak flanking details can cause a lot of problems.

Book a sound test with Darren Evans

When you book a sound test with Darren Evans, we will do more than just support you to meet the relevant standards:
  • We always strive to go above and beyond for all our customers
  • We make the booking process easy, and our engineers will quickly respond to questions
  • We’ll work with you to identify and sort any potential issues.
  To book a sound test, or find out more information about acoustic performance, please use the form below. You can attach detailed drawings and architectural plans to help us understand your project in more detail. One of our experts will quickly be in touch to discuss your requirements in more detail and set up a test.

Top tips

  1. Have an acoustical design review at an early stage When the architect puts detailed drawings together, get an acoustic consultant to look at them to make sure they comply with the various requirements of sound tests.“Bad design is the problem in 25-30% of sound tests that fail so this alleviates that,” explains Sam.
  2. Make sure your site is quiet when we test This is really important as having high background noise from trades both inside and outside of the units can have a massive effect on the test data.
  3. Make sure the flanking elements to the main detail that’s being tested are robust enough “Weak flanking details will cause lots of problems,” says Sam.

Watch out for: 

“Some developments are required to achieve better results than the Building Regulation standard. We can help you navigate this process to ensure the project runs as smoothly as possible,” says Sam.
Get in touch

Next steps

We offer Part E Pre-completion testing at a competitive rate and can carry out testing nationwide. For support with sound testing, we need the following from you:
  1. Detailed drawings: architects’ plans, party floors and walling
  2. Progress of build: where the project is as scheduling sound testing at the right time is very important.
We’ll then send you a checklist, run through everything and book a time for a site visit As a quiet site at the time of testing is so vital, we can be flexible around testing times to ensure the cleanest set of test data possible.

Sound testing

Here’s how to get in touch with us for a free, no obligation quote or chat regarding sound testing for your construction projects, or please feel free to call direct on +44 117 4521722

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