Acoustic Insulation Improvements to Make Before Building… | Kaloutas

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Acoustic Insulation Improvements to Make Before Building Inspections

Roof of facility. Acoustic Insulation Improvements to Make Before Building Inspections

Noise can be a nui­sance, but it’s also unavoid­able in most indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial facil­i­ties. The ener­gy required to pow­er machin­ery can pro­duce all sorts of sounds, which then bounce off walls, floors, and ceil­ings for an even loud­er effect. So much noise can become haz­ardous for occu­pants, dis­tract­ing them from their sur­round­ings and even harm­ing their eardrums. For this rea­son (among oth­ers), busi­ness­es must adhere to spe­cif­ic occu­pa­tion­al noise expo­sure stan­dards set forth by orga­ni­za­tions like OSHA and the Inter­na­tion­al Code Coun­cil (ICC).

If your build­ing is due for an inspec­tion, you must ensure it meets or exceeds these noise reg­u­la­tions – if you don’t pass inspec­tion, you may be in for sig­nif­i­cant fines and oth­er penal­ties. Updat­ing your facility’s acoustic insu­la­tion plays an impor­tant role in keep­ing your busi­ness com­pli­ant, safe, and productive.

What Is Acoustic Insulation?

As its name sug­gests, acoustic insu­la­tion refers to mate­ri­als that absorb and muf­fle sound waves with­in a par­tic­u­lar area. Acoustic insu­la­tive prop­er­ties are often dubbed sound­proof­ing” or noise can­cel­ing.” Any mate­r­i­al that sucks up sound can be con­sid­ered a type of acoustic insu­la­tion, includ­ing blan­kets, gyp­sum pan­els, vis­coelas­tic prod­ucts, min­er­al fiber acoustic pan­els, and much more. At Kaloutas, our insu­la­tion and fire­proof­ing divi­sion pri­mar­i­ly uses spray-applied fiber­glass ther­mal-acoustic insu­la­tion, for rea­sons we’ll fur­ther explore below.

Why Does Acoustic Insu­la­tion Matter?

Exces­sive noise in your facil­i­ty can become a major lia­bil­i­ty on mul­ti­ple fronts, name­ly in the cat­e­gories of health/​safety, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, pri­va­cy, and compliance. 

Accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC), approx­i­mate­ly 22 mil­lion work­ers are exposed to poten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing noise at work each year, which can result in tem­po­rary or per­ma­nent hear­ing loss. A noisy envi­ron­ment is also a dis­tract­ing one, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to focus on key tasks. Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty isn’t the only aspect of your oper­a­tion that suf­fers from sound, how­ev­er – if your facil­i­ty isn’t well-insu­lat­ed against noise trans­fer, sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion can leak out into oth­er rooms with­in your build­ing (this is espe­cial­ly prob­lem­at­ic if you share a facil­i­ty with oth­er busi­ness­es). Last­ly, much like main­tain­ing your facility’s fire­proof paint, main­tain­ing prop­er acoustic insu­la­tion in your facil­i­ty will help keep you com­pli­ant by get­ting your Noise Reduc­tion Coef­fi­cient (NRC) (the lev­el of acoustic absorp­tion) to an accept­able level.

How to Improve Your Facility’s Acoustic Insulation

At this point, you may be won­der­ing, How can I improve my acoustic insu­la­tion?” Doing so starts with a full facil­i­ty audit of your cur­rent acoustic insu­la­tion capa­bil­i­ties. Not all acoustic insu­la­tive mate­ri­als are cre­at­ed equal. Even if your facil­i­ty is ful­ly out­fit­ted with acoustic foam, under­stand that this mate­r­i­al may degrade 5 – 7 years after instal­la­tion. If it’s been decades since you last thought about your acoustic insu­la­tion, odds are it’s time for an update.

Kaloutas rec­om­mends, installs, and main­tains spray-applied fiber­glass ther­mal-acoustic insu­la­tion for more rea­sons than one. For starters, this mate­r­i­al is easy to install – it takes less time to blast sur­faces with an insu­la­tive spray than it does to install indi­vid­ual pan­els or paint a sur­face by hand (the same goes for apply­ing intu­mes­cent paint). Addi­tion­al­ly, this type of acoustic-ther­mal insu­la­tion is high­ly effec­tive – not only at reduc­ing noise lev­els but also at min­i­miz­ing heat trans­fer with­in your build­ing. Spray-applied fiber­glass ther­mal-acoustic insu­la­tion also has lit­tle to no impact on your facility’s indoor air qual­i­ty (IAQ), thanks to our rig­or­ous tech­niques and con­tain­ment offer­ings. As an added bonus, this acoustic insu­la­tion won’t alter your space’s aes­thet­ics. On the con­trary, spray-applied fiber­glass ther­mal-acoustic insu­la­tion can eas­i­ly match what­ev­er col­or scheme you desire.

What Else Does Kaloutas Offer?

Kaloutas began offer­ing our ther­mal-acoustic insu­la­tion ser­vices in 2020, but our indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial ser­vice offer­ings extend far beyond insu­la­tion. We also offer indus­tri­al floor­ing, fire­proof­ing, con­tain­ment, clean­ing, caulk­ing, paint­ing, and more. To learn more about us and all that we do for your facil­i­ty in MA, RI, or NH, con­tact us online or give us a call at 9785321414 today.

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