THE NEGATIVES OF NOT HAVING AN ACOUSTIC ENGINEER

The Negatives of Not Having an Acoustic Engineer Attend Your Building

Any construction or development project comes at a significant cost to those that are determined to create a new structure. Whether you are working to achieve a facility for public use, or if you are in the preparatory and planning stages for a brand new apartment block, failure to consider the impact that sound can have could hamper your progress.

As you most likely already appreciate, to move from the planning stages to the physical work that will bring the final structure to bear, permission must be sought and granted from the appropriate planning authority. These governing bodies have strict guidelines in place that inform their decision-making. As such, failure to comply with any aspect of their requirements will see a project rejected.

As such, the negatives of not having an acoustic engineer attend your building are often an inability to get the project off the ground due to a failure to meet the planning authority’s acoustic requirements and further expense as the team is forced back to the drawing board, so to speak.

Sometimes fixing the issues that caused the project to be rejected are relatively straightforward. However, in other instances, many more environmental and structural considerations must be factored into the planning so that there is no negative impact felt within the community as a result of the project moving forward.

How Bad Acoustics Can Cause a Spike in Post-Construction Expenses

Acoustic engineers specialise in delivering accurate and precise readings of noise and vibration measurements.

They seek to provide an objective unbiased report to developers and planners, which gives them a complete understanding where issues exist in their plans and they can provide effective solutions to ensure their proposed plan complies with the regulations. Through computer modelling, analysis and prediction, noise and vibration issues can be determined and quality assurance procedures can be implemented.

Where plans were approved without proper acoustic testing having been completed on a building, the developer should anticipate the possibility of problems arising at a later date.

Consider an apartment building that is constructed without appropriate acoustical products and solutions in place. Once the occupants / tenants move into the building and start to live their lives, the levels of noise pollution inevitably experienced will lead to many complaints. What’s more, it can also lead to good tenants moving out and make it difficult to fill the empty spaces in the aftermath.

At this point, the owner of the building starts to lose money because they cannot hold onto their tenants or attract others. What’s more, further action is then required, which may mean retrofitting corrective solutions. The cost in such instances can, therefore, be very high.

Just the Facts

Acoustic engineers are qualified to deal with all aspects of noise-related issues in the construction and building industry. These extend from building acoustics to construction noise and vibration, environmental acoustics as well as research and development of various acoustical products.

Hiring an acoustic engineer at the start of your project makes sense because even though it will cost you some money, you can feel assured that the solutions you implement will result in a much more viable build that lives up to its potential.

A qualified acoustic engineer will report back to provide you with facts and nothing else. Equipped with the knowledge with regards to where your building weaknesses are, affords you the chance to proactively address them in your planning. This alone helps many projects gain approval to move forward when seeking permission from the governing bodies. What’s more, it takes the wellbeing of those in the community into consideration and contributes to a positive addition to the environment with limited negative impact.

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