A decent night sleep. A practical guide to noise insulation | Final part |

The acoustic insulation, between a protected enclosure i.e. a home and any another building, adjacent vertical or horizontally that belongs to a different house unit, shall be not less than 50 dBA.

 

There is a before and after regarding sound insulation in Spain and the date was September of 2009. Any building which building licence was obtained after that date must comply with very strict rules on sound insulation.

 

The “Código Técnico de la Edificación” the counterpart of the British Building Regulation states that the protection against noise generated in the same unit of use i.e. adjacent rooms in the same home unit:The global index of noise reduction, in, Ra, shall be for partition walls not less than 33 dBA for airborne noise, D_nTA.,

 

The acoustic insulation, between a protected enclosure i.e. a home and any another building, adjacent vertical or horizontally that belongs to a different house unit, shall be not less than 50 dBA.

 

Soundproofing to airborne noise, D_nTA, between a zone and a protected enclosure, i.e. an apartment and a common area such as a communal staircase, entrance hall etc, adjacent vertical or horizontally, shall not be less than 50 dBA.

 

Protection against noise from services rooms such as installation room, lifts installation etc. the acoustic insulation to airborne noise, D_nTA, will not be less than 55 dBA.

 

The overall level of sound pressure of impacts, L_{'nT w}, in a protected enclosure adjacent vertical,

 

horizontally or having a common horizontal edge with a common area of the building shall not exceed 65 DB. That means goodbye to our flamenco dancer neighbor on the floor above. (Thank God for that).

 

Standards are high.

So as you can see the standards are high and the most important fact is that those standards are to be checked “in situ” and are not theoretical numbers as used to be on the previous norm.

 

The architect didn’t have to prove that the system actually worked but that what he specified theoretically complied with the norm even though in the actual reality didn’t function properly, maybe because the execution of the works were not carried out properly or because two switches boxes could have coincided on exactly the same place on a party wall or whatever.

 

Impact noise insulation.

Activities where impact noises can be found an insulation to noise is more than welcome are to be found in houses belonging to different owners adjoining or adjacent. The most common problems are dragging furniture, the use of baths and WC’s and movement of people in general. There are different solutions that guarantee the attenuation to impact noise that is required by regulations as we have seen above. The most efficient solution to impact sound is a good padded carpet, however in this part of Spain they are not widely used so the new regulation urge the architect to use a floating floor finish. By floating floor I mean that the floor finish must not be in direct contact with the floor slab. To achieve this, an elastic mat must be installed first on the total area of the property and on top of this, the floor finish is put on taking special care that there is no contact between the floor finish and the walls, columns or any vertical element so that the sound is not transmitted through to the floor below.

 

The softer is the floor finish the better sound insulator will be being the carpet the best of all to reduce impact sound.

 

All sanitary units must be mounted on sealing blocks and that include the bath tab, the hand basin, WC etc and all should be isolated from the surrounding walls by using an elastic tape which will prevent noise to be transmitted to the adjacent walls and there on to the neighbor.

 

If everything else fails….

OK but what to do if everything fails and you do have to put up with a very noisy neighbor whose property was built before 2009?

To reduce a high level of noise from your friendly neighbor, it is advisable, firstly, to request its termination in a friendly manner since it can be something that your neighbor may not be aware of. This option is preferable and highly advisable, since it prevents many bureaucratic procedures and an unfriendly neighbor for ever after.

 

However, if the friendly way does not work you can resort to other means: 

• Administrative channels: the complaint is presented in writing in your City Hall, or a call to the local police should suffice for them to come and measure the noise level and provide you with a noise certificate which you can present later at your local Town Hall, meanwhile the police officer may urge the people making the noise to cease.
  
• If this is not enough the complaint is lodged against who produce the annoying noise emissions. Procedures vary depending on the location from which the noise comes from: the building itself, surrounding buildings or activities on the street. 

The complaint can be taken by your solicitor if the noise is such that is harming your health, (article 45 of the Constitution). The Criminal Code (article 325) punishable by penalties ranging from six months up to 4 years for those who violate it.