The New York Times recently ran an article on the importance of building for acoustical comfort and featured a Serious Materials’ QuietRock customer  at 37 Bridge Street in Brooklyn, NY.  The builder is installing QuickRock in the party- and demising- wall assemblies for this historic former soap factory being transformed into multifamily housing. Often builders think about occupant comfort as they’re building, and we’ve seen in green construction that occupant ratings on green construction outweigh their “brown” counterparts in every way but acoustics.

Articles about our innovative customer base didn’t stop there.  In North Boulder, Colorado, Spring Leaf is expected to be a LEED Platnium Net Zero Energy housing development that will include both multi-family and single family homes.  According to the blog Jetson Green, the recently completed model home has installed super-insulating SeriousWindows to help them meet their energy-efficiency goals.  The high R-value of the windows means less heating and energy loss compared to typical ENERGY STAR® windows.

An ambitious Philadelphia-based Passive House project’s goal is to produce a LEED Platinum home for “$100K in hard construction costs” includes the installation of fiberglass SeriousWindows.  According to their blog detailing the project, “These are Serious

Materials triple-glazed windows. They have an R-9 rating which is pretty ridiculous for a window, and they happen to look good as well.”  To which we say, thanks for choosing us and keep up the great building design!

Mo Rocca from the CBS News’ Sunday Morning Show and Tomorrow Show recently stopped by Serious Materials’ headquarters in Sunnyvale to talk to CEO Kevin Surace about The Future of Noise.  Mo’s video segment on noise and how the technology for producing sound has, until recently, outstripped the ability for us to suppress sound, ran on Sunday.  Within the segment, Kevin’s interview with Mo happens around the 3 minute, 40 second mark.

Not to take anything away from Mo Rocca and Kevin, but the other “quiet” star in the segment is QuietRock and QuietCoat, Serious Materials’ products that provide easy, reliable and cost-effective noise reduction in commercial and residential construction.  Go here for more information on Serious Materials’ Quiet® family of products.

If you are at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta this week, check out the most “soundproofed” home theater room in action. Built on the trade show floor by Performance Media Industries with the newest Triad loudspeakers, the room  demonstrates what an ideal high-end home theater, production, broadcast, or recording studio can really sound – or not sound – like. The acoustic assembly integrated THX-certified QuietHome Doors, QuietRock 530, QuietGlue, QuietSeal, QuietPutty, and QuietWood 630.

In celebration of PMI’s triumph, from now through October 31st, buy QuietHome Doors at 20% below current list price (while supplies last and excludes shipping costs). QuietHome Doors deliver superb noise reduction - 65%-80% more than solid-core doors - in an attractive, stainable wood, pre-hung door package.  The doors are available in two levels of performance and already cost up to 50% less than other acoustic doors.  The entry-level QuietHome Door features an STC rating of 44 and is only 1-3/4” thick.  The THX-Certified QuietHome Door provides an STC rating of 51, is 2-1/4” thick, and is the only acoustic door in the world to meet the demanding standards required for THX certification. For the ultimate in performance in high-end home theaters, two QuietHome Doors may be used back to back, separated by a three-foot air gap, for a total STC rating of over 80.

Matt Risinger recently posted a video on his blog about Green Building where he talks about his implementation of QuietRock in a residential home. The homeowners were concerned about potential noise coming from the wall that was shared with the master bedroom and hallway bathroom, slated for use by their children, and between the laundry room and kitchen. On his drywall contractor’s recommendation, Matt used sound-reducing 5/8 inch QuietRock on both those walls.

Check out Matt’s blog and YouTube channel. He consistently shares his green building experiences and material choices in a way that is really helpful to other custom home builders, architects, and homeowners.

You might wonder what creating quieter rooms has to do with green building, but there are a few reasons quiet and sustainability go hand-in-hand:

• In this homeowner’s case, using one 5/8 inch piece of drywall is equivalent (acoustically) to using 6 sheets of regular gypsum drywall. The third largest greenhouse gas producer in building materials is the manufacturing of gypsum drywall, a process that was invented more than 100 years ago. The ability to do more with less means less materials, less waste, less energy, less embodied energy.
• One of the best moves a person can make to have a major impact on the environment is to purchase a condo or townhome in an urban setting. If everyone in the US lived in this way, we could cut carbon emissions by 1B metric tons or more. That is about what Italy and the UK generate as a whole combined. But today, the number one complaint of occupants is noise. And it is this noise that keeps people from moving into urban environments.

There are many cost-effective ways to reduce noise on the market today that create high STC values, especially in multi-family dwellings. It’s up to us to innovate and build sustainable environments that people want to move into, without sacrifice in comfort or privacy.

Often times, others say things much better than I can. Acoustics By Design is an excellent Midwest acoustical consulting firm that recognizes the implications of good acoustics and green design for the schools that will create our next generation of leaders. Tim Koldenhoven’s recent blog post “My Scarlet Letter | Distractions in the Classroom” is well worth a read.

Much deliberation and thought goes into the look visual appeal of architectural designs. Tim points out, “Goals like reverberation time, STC, and background noise levels certainly are not glamorous when compared to the visual architectural elements of the building; however, they are still critical design standards that ought not be ignored.”

Significantly more funding to create high performance schools is being offered through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  Projects carried out by ARRA HR-1 grants must be certified, verified or consistent with the applicable standards. LEED Certification is the industry’s most widely recognized green standard, and many of our nation’s schools are being refurbished or built with these standards in mind.

Tim mentioned in his post, “the acoustical standards set forth by LEED exist not only to make the building more sustainable but also to enhance the learning environment and reduce distractions for the student.”

As more and more schools are being refurbished or built according to LEED standards, it becomes increasingly important to keep acoustical design as a high priority.  Koldenhoven recounts the noise surrounding his high school English classroom distracted him from being forced to read studying The Scarlet Letter.

This problem is made worse in that, green building designers seem to be distracted when it comes to acoustical comfort.  In my recent post “The Acoustics of Green Buildings”, I mention that green buildings outperform their ‘brown’ counterparts in almost every measure – thermal comfort, air quality, cleanliness, and general satisfaction. But according to a study by the Center for the Built Environment, a survey of 34,000 respondents found that acoustical comfort is of these green buildings is unacceptable. In fact, the acoustics of green buildings is worse than that of brown buildings!

The good news is that the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act (H.R. 2187) is currently being voted on in the Senate.  If passed, the act would authorize $6.4 billion in 2010 for school construction projects that meet certain environmental standards. H.R. 2187 would allow federal grants to be used by school districts to take measures designed to reduce or eliminate human exposure to classroom noise and environmental noise pollution.

Reducing noise in schools may not help everyone appreciate the merits of The Scarlet Letter, but it will certainly give our children a better chance.

And if you’re interested in learning more about the acoustics of green schools, later this month Serious Materials, in conjunction with Architectural Record, will be offering an “Upgrading School Facilities” webinar which will allow attendees to qualify for sustainable design (SD) credits now required of American Institute of Architect members. We’ll certainly let you know when registration opens.

Last week, I had the pleasure of chairing a technical session titled, “The Acoustics of Green Buildings” at the Acoustical Society of America’s international spring meeting in Portland, OR. Why would the world’s experts in building acoustics and noise control devote an afternoon to the specific sector of green buildings? Because we need to.

Green buildings outperform their ‘brown’ counterparts in almost every measure – thermal comfort, air quality, cleanliness, and general satisfaction. But according to a study by the Center for the Built Environment, a survey of 34,000 respondents found that acoustical comfort is bad. In fact, the acoustics of green buildings is worse than that of brown buildings.

FIG 1: Graph of Satisfaction from the CBE study.

To complicate matters, quieter is not absolutely better. The interplay between masking sounds and distracting noise in buildings is complicated. For example, the more efficient HVAC equipment typically used in green design is quieter, so inoffensive background noise has been reduced, allowing for other noise to make more of an impact. Combating this requires taking acoustics into account during design. One reason architects may overlook acoustical design with LEED building is that, in the past, good acoustical design meant using additional costly building materials. With advanced technology, we now have hotel and government customers that have actually saved money and hundreds of thousands of square feet incorporating new materials such as QuietRock into their LEED design.

One of the invited speakers was Kevin Powell, a research director at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).  GSA is the biggest property manager in the country and one with a mandate for green buildings in their property portfolio. Kevin highlighted the need for better privacy in their existing buildings but more importantly, recognition from the major green building standards regarding acoustics. Currently, the LEED rating systems concerned with offices and homes offer no points for acoustical performance. There are minimal credits awarded for acoustics in schools and hospitals.

The panel’s points and concerns over current green rating systems were profiled in a Scientific American article titled: “It’s not so easy being in a green building”. As David Sykes, my session co-chair stated: “There’s a need for the profession to understand what’s going on in the LEED world and a need for the LEED world to understand what’s going on in acoustics.” I couldn’t agree more, David. I couldn’t agree more.