BAP Acoustics

Sound, Noise and Vibration Consulting Engineers

CrossFit vs Cross Neighbours: Building a fitness centre? Now’s the time to plan for noise mitigation.

Whether it’s elevating home organization to a zen-like practice or hurling truck tires around an echo chamber, some trends take root virtually over night and blossom at length despite their glaring (or, more fittingly blaring) issues.

Vancouver, recognized as one of the most expensive real estate markets in Canada, is almost as well-known for its fitness enthusiasts. Despite our relatively mild climate, however, we’re also known for copious rain that sends the health-conscious indoors to work out. As continually high property costs give rise to increased mixed-use development, gyms, fitness centres, and (in CrossFit parlance) boxes crop up in structures from empty nester spare rooms to office and apartment buildings.

We get the appeal of owning a fitness space, and if you’re building one, now’s the time to plan and implement effective noise mitigation strategies. And unless you’re designing a yoga studio, note that …

If you build it, they will sweat. Loudly.

Whether they’re commercial or residential, neighbours are a fact of city life, and it’s worth planning for a harmonious coexistence with them. Before introducing a fitness centre—particularly a weight-focused or high intensity one—into your building, consider the building’s foundation and structure. If possible, locate your facility on grade or below, away from residences and offices. Sound and vibration can travel in all directions, so bear that in mind before constructing walls, floors, and ceilings. Investing in suitable materials pre-construction will prove far more cost-effective than making inevitable, expensive, and sometimes inadequate upgrades soon after noise complaints give you no choice.

Clang, clang, clang went the free weights …

Essentially barebones gyms, boxes (as their communities call them) host CrossFit classes. Upwards of 10,000 affiliate boxes around the world attract fitness devotees looking for an intense and varied workout that incorporates all kinds of weights (including kettle bells and tire trucks) and yields fast results. Low start-up costs, meanwhile, appeal to potential business owners. A $1,000 weekend seminar, an essay and a $3,000 annual affiliate fee are all it takes to use the brand name.

Get outside the “box”

Success stories abound, sure, but so do cautionary tales. For her Observer article Persecuted CrossFit Gyms Forced to Flee After Noise Complaints, lifestyle reporter Jordyn Taylor interviewed several CrossFit owners who’d, without even violating noise ordinances, received so many vitriolic—even violent—complaints they were forced to relocate. At press time, Austin, Texas owner Valerie Hunt thought her facility BMV CrossFit would remain beyond reproach in a commercial zone. But she was woefully mistaken:

(R)esidents nearby are complaining they can hear people grunting and dropping weights. They’ve taken the matter to City Council, as well as launched a vicious attack against the gym.

“I had to get my phone number changed,” Ms. Hunt told the Observer. “The texting turned really ugly—a lot of cussing [and] ‘We hate you’.”

Though Ms. Hunt said Austin’s City Council confirmed BVM hadn’t violated any noise ordinances, the neighbours’ complaints led the city to re-classify CrossFit as an outdoor sports and recreation activity, as opposed to a personal improvement service. That means Ms. Hunt must find a new space and convince her landlord to let her end her lease early.

A good take-away from the story above? Compliance with codes, bylaws, and ordinances doesn’t necessarily equal adequate soundproofing.

Now what fresh bell is this?

Effective pre-construction acoustic strategies

Wall isolation

Locate your hotel gym, for example, as far away from guest rooms as you can. A full-sized commercial facility should be detached, if that’s an option.

Sound-reducing floor underlayment

Install a layer of cushioning and support between a floor and subfloor. Since most floors require underlayment in any case, it pays to plan ahead and invest in a sound-reducing product rather than the standard kind. Installing sound-reducing underlayment beneath existing floors involves considerably more work … and expense. Definitely consider this option if your gym is above an occupied space. Even without weights involved, exercise movement can be noisy.

“Quiet enough for you now? Wish I’d talked to an acoustical engineer before signing that 5-year lease.”

We realize that building from the ground up isn’t always possible, so if you’ve leased an existing space, a few noise control options are available. You can:

  • upgrade the separating wall (and potentially floor/ceiling) assemblies to reduce amplified music and instructor sound impact
  • install a high-quality resilient floor surface specifically chosen for area use (e.g. free weights, weight machines, treadmills, etc.)
  • enhance user experience and marginally benefit adjacent spaces by introducing acoustic treatment (e.g. panels, hanging baffles) in the fitness space itself to reduce reverberation and hence the build up of reverberant sound.

Whatever your interest in fitness spaces, we invite you to contact us if you’d like to learn more about making those spaces acoustically friendly. Until then, enjoy your workout and don’t forget to hydrate!

I Can Hear What You’re Thinking: Open-Plan Office Acoustics Demystified

By BAP Blogger

Graced with a temperate climate the rest of Canada might envy, we who inhabit the BC Lower Mainland can grow all sorts of goodies. The one thing we can’t grow, however, is more land … least of all in our most densely populated cities where, increasingly, white collar workers spend their shifts in open plan offices. The job market, career opportunities, and workplaces of today often differ from that of 10+ years ago. Many business people, particularly young entrepreneurs, are strapped for capital and on the lookout for more affordable alternatives to traditional office design, so open plans are becoming more and more popular.

The one thing we can’t grow is more land … least of all in our most densely populated cities.

Meant to foster collaboration, open plan office spaces do present challenges around privacy and focused individual work. In the absence of well-designed acoustics, people find their own solutions. Headphone wear—publicly an almost universal symbol denoting “Stay outta my face”—may convey an unintentionally negative message in the workplace, when all we really mean is “I need to drown out the chatter so I can focus and get some work done.”

Quiet time. It’s not just for introverts.

Headphone wear—publicly an almost universal symbol denoting “Stay outta my face”—may convey an unintentionally negative message in the workplace.

So how do we plan spaces that accommodate the dual needs of teams and individuals? Hint: The word plan is key. If at all possible, it’s best to address these factors during the space planning and design stages.

Open-plan acoustics: the hows & whys

Reverberation control based on room shape should inform open-plan office acoustical design. How will planning affect the propagation of sound and, by extension, acoustic comfort?

Roughly 70 percent of all employees in open work areas report that the biggest impact on their productivity is the conversations of their coworkers.

Well, while talk may or may not be cheap, it’s definitely the stand-out culprit in poorly designed open office spaces. “Roughly 70 percent of all employees in open work areas report that the biggest impact on their productivity is the conversations of their coworkers,”  according to engineer Steve Johnson’s Work Design Magazine article, Addressing Workplace Acoustics In The Open Office.

“I’m not shouting, Chatty Chester next door is ordering lunch!”

If there’s anything more annoying than overhearing a phone conversation you don’t need or want to hear, it’s only hearing half of it. These halfalogues, as they’ve been euphemistically dubbed, are among the most enticingly disruptive auditory workplace distractions and involuntary listeners’ brains take time to refocus on tasks at hand. “Studies have shown that it can take as much as 20 minutes to fully regain concentration on complex tasks once distracted,” Steve Johnson writes. “Once distracted, error rates increase as work is resumed.”

Frustratingly, this happens even when people speak quietly in what Johnson describes as a “creepy quiet” space. “Most modern commercial office buildings have very quiet background sound levels,” he states. “When conversations begin in a creepy quiet environment, they can be easily overheard at distances of 50-60 feet. This does not allow for productive work.”

And then there’s Creepy Quiet … Could you work here?

So it stands to reason that people who need to communicate sit near each other, yet separate acoustically from other work groups to a degree that affords everyone adequate freedom from noisy disruption.

Open office planners should consider factors and options such as:

  • work station placement
  • a sound-absorbent ceiling
  • floor and wall materials (concrete floors, for example, deflect sound and prove especially bothersome in high-ceilinged rooms)
  • furniture material and surfaces (again, hard surfaces deflect sound)
  • adequately tall sound-absorbent work station partitions
  • silent and collaborative work areas
  • work methodology and technical aids
  • background noise
  • sound masking (these systems subtly increase the level of background noise to reduce auditory workplace distractions and enhance privacy levels)
    • The output of such systems must be carefully configured. Too low in volume, and the masking system may fail to provide sufficient masking. Too high, and there is a risk of increasing worker annoyance and lowering productivity. Generally speaking, background noise levels in an open office should not exceed 45dBA. In a cellular office, a 40dBA background noise level is more suitable. (From our 2015 blog post, Office Acoustics: Speech Privacy and Security)

An essential starting point

The list above provides a general overview of some measures we can take in creating an acoustically ergonomic open work space, but all the suggestions are rendered moot without proper ceiling treatment.

A good sound-absorbent ceiling, generally installed as low as possible for optimal acoustics, lowers sound levels by reducing reverberation. In turn, shorter distances are required between work stations to ensure their inhabitants’ speech won’t disturb others.

Measure twice, cut once

With all this in mind, again, the best time to address noise control is at the design stage of the office, when we can review the client’s privacy/security requirements and then work with the architect to develop appropriate sound mitigation. But whether you’re at that stage or dealing with an existing space in need of acoustical treatment, please contact us. We’d be happy to discuss your needs.

I don’t like the tone of your strata investigation: How to make noise about noise, Part 1

When we think of noise so bothersome it inspires formal complaints, we’re likely to think in terms of its level, AKA volume or loudness. Your neighbour cranks on her music loudly enough to impress DJs, for example, and its sound transmits through your floors, walls, or ceiling, causing disturbance.

You put up with it for a while in the hopes she won’t do it often, but she does. Sure, you may quite enjoy Beyoncé’s edgy new album, but not so much at 3 a.m. on a weeknight when her mezzo soprano range registers more as high-pitch than sublime. So you explain the situation to your neighbour and she graciously turns down her tunes. How easy was that? You didn’t even have to approach your strata about it!

Would that all noise complaints were so easily addressed and resolved!

When the offending noise transmits to a residential unit from common property—to use the parlance of strata living—unexpected layers of complexity can develop. In early 2014, a Lower Mainland strata council hired BAP to conduct noise assessments based on an owner’s complaints about noise entering her suite from the building’s hot tub mechanical room directly below. The hot tub requires two pumps to function.

The jet pump activates when someone is using the hot tub, in this case off and on daily during the hot tub’s operation hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. The circulation pump, causing noise that the owner describes as “like a refrigerator, except louder” is on constantly.

Our measurements and analysis indicated the presence of low level (but clearly audible) tonal noise in the affected unit. Of course “noise” is a very subjective term; not the least of that subjectivity stems from its components and how they’re measured:

  • Decibels are units of loudness measurement, with approximately 10dB being the quietest our ears pick up, and 130dB considered painful.
  • A “weighted decibel scale”, or dB(A), entails adjusting meters to more sensitively reflect how the human ear perceives noise.  Normal conversation falls within the 50–60 dB(A) range.
  • Pitch, or tone, relate to frequency, or how many times a second particles vibrate. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz).

Although published guidance on the impact of tonal noise, especially at low levels, is scarce, we believe that HVAC-related background noise should be free from audible tones such as the hum of a refrigerator … or, say, a hot tub pump.

Following our initial measurements based on the more problematic circulation pump, we recommended replacing cold water supply lines with flexible braided hoses. Our recommendations were implemented, resulting in significant noise reduction. As noted in the Civil Resolution Tribunal’s publicly accessible ruling, “Repeat noise measurements were taken, with the circulation Pump noise having reduced by 8dB at 350Hz. The resulting noise ‘would be perceived as being nearly half as loud’ as before the introduction of the flexible hoses.”

Alas, “significant” isn’t synonymous with “problem solved”, and we were asked to conduct further measurements a few months later. Tune in next month for Part 2 of a story that continues to unfold four years after we took on our role in it.

6 reasons to hire acoustic consultants for your project … at an early stage in its progress

You trust your well-trained, compassionate family doctor. But would you be comfortable with a diagnostic hint of “It’s probably acid reflux, but it might be throat cancer”? Chances are, you’d be as unlikely to accept a “might be” as she would to let you leave her examining room before referring you to a specialist. At the very least, she’d send you off to a lab with blood test requisition in hand.

Just as one’s complex health issues may call for a diverse team of medical professionals to resolve, complex building or facility requirements—be they commercial, residential, public, or multi-purpose—necessitate teams of professionals including developers, architects, designers, and project managers—to ensure municipal and regulatory compliance as well as occupant comfort.

We believe that the best of these teams work with acoustic consultants whose specialized understanding of All Things Noise & Vibration enables them to deliver solutions before they become problems, thereby reducing costs and optimizing preventative measures. Consider making acoustic consultants integral members of your team because, as engineering specialists, they can:

  1. Take measures to ensure your project meets both legal stipulations and occupant needs.
  2. Not only conduct acoustic performance tests, but also comprehensively explain the significance of test results to other professionals involved in a given project.
  3. Formulate precise guidelines to help architectural teams fine-tune their work. These guidelines enable architects to coordinate acoustic performance with design concept as well as mechanical and electrical specifications.
  4. Model acoustic emissions to assess infrastructure or facilities project noise impact on local communities. Click here to learn more about identifying as well as mitigating potential noise or vibration issues.
  5. Translate Red Tape to English and liaise fluently with civil servants on your behalf.
  6. Inform construction projects with exceptional depth and breadth of knowledge regarding building frame materials and their unique acoustic challenges. BAP provides expert advice in the design and construction of wood-frame as well as concrete buildings across numerous sectors. Click here to learn more.

If you’d like to know more about these and other ways to make your structure “sound good”, please contact us. We’d be happy to chat.

The Science—and Nature—of Sanctuaries

The Science—and Nature—of Sanctuaries

Brechin United Church Redevelopment, Nanaimo

 

Sanctuary. The concept means different things to different people, and all those meanings play important roles in healthy, sustainable communities. It could be a place for community gathering; it could be your home. In this case study of the Brechin United Church Redevelopment in Nanaimo, BC, both those meanings informed our work with the client, BC Housing. One of several projects slated for construction by 2020, this redevelopment stems from a united commitment to providing much-needed affordable rental housing in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island.

The Story

The United Church of Canada partnered with BC’s provincial government (which will contribute $12.4 million in funding) to redevelop numerous properties. We’re honoured to participate in three such initiatives, and we applaud their commitment to affordable housing as well as community engagement and environmental stewardship. All three projects focus on the necessity to do more with less in these times of dwindling resources and land availability. Designed to maximize the amount of affordable housing, the Brechin United Church redevelopment will feature:

  • Church space
  • 75 rental units (100% will be rented at BC Housing’s affordable rates)
  • Studio and 1-bedroom units; more than 20% are family-friendly
  • 2- and 3-bedroom units
  • Below-grade parking

Challenges …

Multipurpose spaces, such as those incorporating both community and residential areas, present unique challenges throughout their planning and design stages. We needed to balance acoustic optimization with structural requirements, as well control flanking noise, i.e. sound that goes over, under, or around—rather than through separating elements such as walls and ceiling.

… And Solutions

Our team developed a separating floor system that utilizes a concrete topping supported on a resilient layer. We thrive on innovative solutions in meeting clients’ needs … If you’d like to know more about this new process, or how we can help perfect your sanctuary, please get in touch.