WAR ON NOISE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 80, 28 December 1935, Page 16

WAR ON NOISE

Sound-Proof Floors To Deaden Radio

Efforts to produce Hie nearest approach to the sound-proof house were referred to recently when Dr, R. E. Stradling, Director of Building Research under the British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, addressed a conference at the College of Technology.

The tendency in present-day construction, he pointed out, is to cut down the thicknesses of walls and floors- in order to cheapen the first, cost of building. It was quite justly said that the old traditional thicknesses were much stronger than were required from a load-bearing point of view, but it was not realised how much this reduction in massiveness of construction had helped to intensify the modern problem of noise.

“Not only have street noises become almost unbearable in cities and on main roads,” said Dr. Stradling, “but the advent of gramophones and loudspeakers has brought about a condition in some of our homes which makes rest an impossibility. “This problem of noise and its prevention has to be faced very seriously, and especially so if it is proposed to house people iu flats. “Whereas it does not seem to matter so much about noise created by one family in their own house —for this is obviously to some extent under the control of the householder—it does cause very serious trouble if the noise of children’s play, loud-speakers and the like are transmitted almost with-

out reduction from one household to another.

“Wilb a detached house for each family the problem is largely one of keeping out traffic noises and the like, for families seem to be able to ‘consume their own noise’ or have little sympathy if they can’t! “With attached dwellings, ami especially with flats, the problem is very difficult. Loudspeakers, gramophones, and the like are sources of great annoyance, but wilb modern forms of construction the most serious disturbance is possibly due to those noises which get directly into the structure itself and are conveyed from point to point ip a building, sometimes manifesting themselves in a form more objectionable than that of the original source.

“Children running to and fro on the floors above, boots dropping, furniture being moved —all noises which are caused by impacts on the structure itself are the most difficult to retain within the living space of the single household.

“The only hope seems to be in finding a suitable covering, especially for floors, which will not allow the impact noise to enter the structure. This is not easy. A heavy pile carpet would be extremely useful, but is, of course, quite out of the question for obvious reasons.

“Experiments are in progress now, trying to find solutions to this very urgent problem, but success has not yet been reached.”