Metropolitan Insulation

Don’t make it easy for thieves to access your roof. Remove ladders, bins, or garden furniture.

Nov

2016

Some Tips On How To Soundproof A Noisy Apartment

If you have the misfortune to live in a noisy apartment life can become difficult, particularly if that noise ends up keeping you awake at night or ruining your relaxation time. Fortunately there are some things you can do to soundproof your apartment without breaking the bank.

One of the biggest problems when you live in apartment of course is the neighbours. Noises from people coming home late or in the early hours of the morning can be a particular problem if you share your floor with people who are night owls.

Noise on stairs and corridors can be cut down by installing sound absorbing carpet, however living in an apartment means won’t have the same control over what happens outside your door as with a house.

The next best thing therefore is to add tiles to walls that have sound absorption qualities. While cork tiles may sound like a throwback to a bygone age, they are coming back in fashion and if cork isn’t for you there are other materials that have similar sound insulation qualities.

Another method of reducing noise that also offers other benefits is to build yourself a library. While most people seem to do their reading on tablets these days, books are still great at muffling sound.

Nov

2016

Ideas On Isolating Your Room For Sound

While you might not want your room completely shutting out external noise unless you are building a recording studio, it is useful to have a room in the house where you can make plenty of noise without disturbing other people – who hasn’t been told to ‘turn it down’ at one point or another in their lives? Here are some ways you could isolate your room for sound.

One way to begin the process of isolating your room for sound is to use acoustic sealant. Gaps often form around skirting boards as well as ceilings so sealing these areas up first is a good place to begin.

Next you can use acoustic wedged panels to add insulation to walls. These panels are easy to install and require just a bit of glue to stick them on. Glue is often supplied with the packs. You can install as many or as few of these as you want depending on how much sound isolation you need.

If you want to be more radical then you could use a soundproof construction made up of wooden frames. Then attach your stud wall. The thicker and more dense the material you use, the more sound it will absorb.

You could even fill walls with a damping compound which makes it ideal if you are using a room as a home theatre or if you regularly play loud bass music.

Nov

2016

Soundproofing Jobs London

Acoustic doors being successfully installed at Katzenjammers Bier Keller in Southwark. We have all the skills and knowledge for entertainment venues like this. Metropolitan cover all acoustic and insulation requirements.

Installation of acoustic walls in stairwell in a domestic home in Stoke Newington. This system combines traditional and technological advances in acoustic solutions. The result on this was 80% reduction in airborne and impact noise.

Oct

2016

ROI on ‘invisible’ Home Improvements

What’s the ROI on ‘invisible’ Home Improvements Like Sound Insulation

When you fit an extension on your house or perhaps a loft conversion, the return on investment is easy to quantify, but what about invisible renovations such as sound proofing and insulation?

The answer to this depends a lot on your local environment, the amount of noise likely to affect your property and how old the property is.

Of course installing sound insulation isn’t going to add value in the same way as renovations you can see but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t install it. Often in older houses it can sometimes be essential to install soundproofing to make sure a house appeals to buyers or tenants in the first place.

Sometimes you can highlight the work that has been done as part of the sales documentation so that potential purchasers will see what kind of benefits they are getting from your soundproofing upgrades. You may even want to keep photographs of the work being done too.

If you intend to stay in your home, then having a quitter environment in which to spend time away from work can improve your health and sense of wellbeing – and who can put a price on that!

Sep

2016

Community Groups Near Heathrow Question Noise Compensation

Heathrow’s third runway has caused considerable controversy and it looks like community groups suspect that noise compensation won’t add up to as much as they were told when plans were unveiled.

Living close to a busy airport like Heathrow inevitably means much greater exposure to noise than the general population with huge numbers of flights arriving and taking off each year. According to measurements, households located within the noisiest zone close to the airport will be exposed 60 dB between 7 am and 11pm.

To compensate, those responsible for the expansion of the airport Heathrow Airport Ltd (HAL) have offered to cover the cost of sound insulation to reduce noise exposure from the third runway. What is unclear is just how many houses will qualify for help with noise insulation and what happens to those households that fall outside of immediate boundaries.

Heathrow Airport Ltd (HAL) has put aside a total of £700 million to cover noise compensation and sound insulation of homes however this is unlikely to cover all of the compensation costs and insulation package being offered to residents.

While the economic benefits of the third runway will be huge for the national economy, it appears that some locals will need to look at noise reduction measures themselves to reduce its impact on quality of life.

Sep

2016

Can Bad Acoustics Put You Off Your Food?

According to restaurant surveys, the biggest complaint from restaurant customers after poor service is noise. There is good reason for restaurant owners to take this seriously as the effect of noise on customers also works at a deeper level when it comes to the links between our senses according to a study.

Anyone who has been to a busy restaurant will understand that noise levels can get out of hand. Depending on what kind of occasion it is, noise may even help with the atmosphere, but when it comes to actually enjoying food, less noise means more enjoyment.

A recent study by Manchester University showed that bad acoustics can affect the way our food tastes. Saltiness and sweetness were detected more strongly when it was quiet than when background noise was introduced. The experiment had participants eating the same foods and it turns out people actually enjoyed the taste of their food more when they had a bit as opposed to a lot of background noise.

This may explain why a quiet restaurant is often the choice for romantic meals. Besides being able to hear what your partner is saying, the extra enjoyment they get from their food is likely to make the occasion more memorable.

Aug

2016

When The Sound Of Music Can Be Bad For You

Listening to music is one of life’s great pleasures. Unfortunately exposing your ears to loud music of any kind in the home or at work can have a detrimental affect on hearing according to doctors.

While loud noise over a short period can be uncomfortable for your ears, being exposed to loud noise over long periods of several hours can have a cumulative impact on ears that can actually end up damaging your hearing.

The problem for many people who end up with damaged ears is they don’t realise how much noise they are being exposed to in the home or at work until it is too late. For example, it’s natural to want to turn up the volume of music if you want to drown out other noise. This then increases the amount of damage to sensitive nerve fibres that transmit signals to the brain.

The use of headphones can be particularly problematic if they are used for several hours a day while working in the office. Any noise above 110 decibels is unsafe for the human ear.

One potential solution is to better insulate your home or office against external news so that you can listen to and enjoy your music at a level that won’t cause any lasting damage.

Aug

2016

Noisy Neighbours

Getting The Local Authorities Involved:
Keep a Record of Disturbances

Before involving your local authority, it makes sense to gather a body of evidence which you present to them as proof of the types of disturbances you are experiencing.

Note down the time of a disturbance, its length, and its nature.

If there is a reason for you neighbours making noise at that time, for example a dog barking because it is locked outside at night, then note this down too.

Once you have a decent body of evidence to show the extent of the nuisance your noisy neighbours are causing, you can contact your local authority or council.

Contact your Council

Within most councils, the environmental health department or city living department will have a dedicated contact for antisocial noise related issues. Some councils have a dedicated staff of Environmental Health Officers, who are able to issue warnings and on-the-spot fines to noisy neighbours who do not cease making noise. Failure to pay such fines can result in prosecution and a further £1,000 fine.

What The Law Says

Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, councils are obliged to take reasonable steps to investigate complaints of nuisance noise (and other types of nuisance such as littering or emissions) made by residents. The same law states that where the local authority believes that a nuisance is present, it must serve an ‘abatement notice’ on the individual responsible. The abatement notice can forbid the nuisance altogether, or restrict it to certain times of day.

If the person creating the nuisance cannot be found, the notice is served on the owner or occupier of the property from which the nuisance is coming. Failure to obey the abatement notice is a criminal offence and can result in a fine of £5,000.

In considering whether a nuisance is taking place, the council will consider (1) the nature and location of the noise, (2) the time and duration of the noise and (3) whether the activity creating the noise has any value.

‘Nuisance’
In England and Wales, ‘nuisance’ is defined legally as an unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of one’s property. In deciding this, consideration of the standards of the average person, and the character of the neighbourhood in question (such as whether other residents who are affected have also complained) will be taken.

Confusingly, the definition of nuisance in Scotland is not the same as England and Wales. The definition in Scotland requires that the behaviour is both unreasonable and causes discomfort. Reasonableness is judged with regard to an imaginary ‘reasonable person’ – would they be affected by the level of noise being created?

There is no level of volume which must be met for a noisy neighbour’s behaviour to be considered a nuisance. The standard is subjective and the assessment made by the local authority will be subject to the individual assessor. This is another reason why keeping a diary of noisy behaviour by neighbours is important – it can lend weight to your case.

Solutions for Noisy Neighbours

Having noisy neighbours can be very unpleasant, but if you are informed you can do something about it. We recommend the following points of advice:

If you feel safe enough to do so, try to make personal contact. Many times you will find that your neighbours had no idea they were causing a nuisance.
If you prefer to keep a distance, use an anonymous letter or note. Be amiable, and try to let your neighbour see things from your perspective – if they are reasonable people they are likely to appreciate that everyone needs sleep!
Collect evidence. If your efforts at informing your neighbours that they are causing a nuisance are unsuccessful, you will benefit from having a diary of their noisy behaviour when you contact the authorities.
Be safe. When in doubt, do not engage your noisy neighbours – if you fear that they might escalate the situation into something beyond just noise making, or you feel frightened, bullied or intimidated, then contact the police rather than putting yourself into a potentially unsafe situation.

Aug

2016

Reducing Noise From Water Systems

One of the biggest noise problems in houses comes from water systems. Specifiers can sometimes face a challenge to reduce noise from pipes in new constructions as can those who buy homes with pipes made from materials that do little to insulate noise.

Manufacturers can often fool specifiers when it comes to acoustic levels in pipes by disguising their actual performance levels. Add to this the drive to reduce building costs and the level of soundproofing around pipes can be less than ideal.

Plastic based systems are the worst culprits for noise and ironically the old cast iron pipes they replaced still offer the best sound insulation than their cheaper alternatives. Moreover, opting for plastic based systems can end up costing more in extra insulation costs where additional materials need to be purchased to compensate for the extra noise.

According to those in the industry current standards of testing sound insulation in water pipes are not stringent enough to replicate the sound generated under normal usage conditions.

Reducing noise from pipes in an existing house is a different matter of course. It can be a major job to replace a water system therefore one option is to use acoustic heavy sound proofing in the ceiling, which can reduce noise by up to 25 db. By using glass wool and an enclosure constructed from gypsum board, it is possible to reduce the level of noise by up to 30 dB(A) in walls.

Jul

2016

Should I Buy A New House If I Want Good Sound Insulation?

If the predicted fall in house prices becomes a reality following Britain’s exit from the EU, it may soon be a good time to go out looking for property at reduced prices. However before you do have you considered how good the sound insulation is?

Few people think about noise until it becomes an irritation after moving in. By this time it is usually too late too late to change your mind and you will be left with two options, move house or install sound insulation.

There are many factors of course which can cause excessive levels of noise entering your home. Age of the property can be a big factor in this. Older houses will usually lack the modern sound insulation you get in new houses unless someone thought to install it beforehand.

So if noise could be a problem for you, then buying a new house could be a better option in this regard. The problem is new houses generally cost more than the equivalent older property so you will be paying an extra premium anyway.

One way to solve the dilemma of buying new or old is to weigh up how much you will need to invest in sound insulation and other alterations to bring a house up to today’s standards.

Metropolitan Insulation Blog