Metropolitan Insulation Blog

10
Sep
2015

Noise Pollution Hotspots

A programme on ITV this month highlighted Britain’s noise pollution hotsposts and what the government is doing (or not doing) about the situation in the UK.

The UK government is pressing ahead with major improvements to transport infrastructure costing £411 billion including high speed train lines, new airport runways and roads, but it appears little thought has gone into how people will be insulated from all the extra noise this will bring.

Many studies have shown the effects of noise on health, yet the programme on ITV’s Tonight titled Britain’s Noise Nuisance highlighted a worrying lack of measures taken to combat noise even in existing noise hotspots in the UK.

The government’s decision to carry on regardless is unlikely to calm those affected and looks set to bring plenty of opposition in the coming years.
The affects on the body of exposure to noise include an increased heart rate and higher blood pressure and this can be detrimental to health, particularly in those people who are already suffering from heart disease.

In some cases noise can even be a factor in the deaths of some people. 10,000 deaths are said to have been caused by noise in Europe as a whole each year as well as 43,000 hospital admissions.

Posted by admin in Home Insulation, Soundproofing
20
Aug
2015

Will Steeper Airport Approaches Reduce Noise Pollution?

This is what a trial on the Heathrow airport’s flight path aims to find out as they will begin asking pilots to make steeper approaches top reduce the amount of noise they make and its impact on nearby residents.

Living near a busy airport like Heathrow is particularly difficult for anyone who wants to live a quiet life. The airport is currently the 4th busiest in the world and there are no signs that the amount of traffic passing to and from its runways will be reduced in our lifetime.

We are often asked to provide insulation services to residents who live near airports. On solution to reduce noise and possible damage is to ensure roofs and tiles are sealed properly as can be found amongst our case studies.

This trial by the Civil Aviation Authority could be an important step to reducing noise at source. Prevention can often be better than having to find a cure, however it is unlikely that simply have planes come in to land on a steeper trajectory will reduce noise levels by a huge amount.

The international standard for approaches is currently 3 degrees and the new trial will have planes approaching at 3 ½ degrees to see what the effect on noise will be. The trial will continue until March 2016.

Posted by admin in Soundproofing
10
Aug
2015

Is Low Noise Tolerance Bringing An End To Nightclubs?

Smoking bans and cash-strapped youngsters are all factors being blamed for the slow death of the nightclubs we know them but could it be as much to do with a lower tolerance for noise pollution?

The Guardian recently put together an article on the decline of nightclubs following news that more than half of all nightclubs in the UK have closed in the past 10 years.

The article looks at a variety of factors including the smoking ban which has significantly reduced the number of people going out to pubs as well as nightclubs and a simple lack of cash among the demographic most likely to be populating nightclubs.

However noise pollution cannot be discounted as a major reason for the decline. As one nightclub owner commented, a single noise complaint can lead to a licence being put in jeopardy. So when more people are living in city and town centre apartments than before the possibility of complaints can only increase.

Efforts to limit noise pollution include only allowing clubs to open until midnight so as not to disturb local residents and moments of calm where DJs stop playing music. All of these measures of course are extremely restrictive to nightclubs that were once open until the early hours of the following day.

Posted by admin in Soundproofing
17
Jul
2015

What Is Thermal Insulation And Why Is It Important?

Thermal insulation is not simply about keeping out the cold, it is also about maintaining a comfortable ambient temperature indoors and reducing the amount of energy consumed in homes offices and other buildings.

To use the scientific terminology, thermal insulation reduces the transfer of heat between adjacent environments. Having the right amount of insulation and using the right type of material will ensure a good balance between letting heat escape when the temperature is hot outside and keeping it in during cold spells.

If a building is insulated correctly, no matter what the weather is doing externally, the affect on the indoor temperature shouldn’t vary a great deal.

Various kinds of materials are used to insulate houses and offices with most popular material being Fibre glass. Foamed plastic is also used widely, as well as mineral wool, and even cotton slag. There are new materials being trialled all the time with many recycled materials proving to be interesting alternatives.

Aerogel is one insulation technology that is expected to grow rapidly in popularity in the future. The material once formed the basis of insulation for the space shuttle and consists of 95% air. The downside is it currently costs several times more to use this material than others on the market.

Posted by admin in Home Insulation, Thermal Insulation
03
Jul
2015

The Importance Of Fitting The Right Type Of Thermal Insulation

Depending on the time of year, having a large amount of thermal insulation can be either a good or a bad thing. The issue was reported by the Daily Mail this month when they highlighted how some homes are actually too hot in the summer.

Experts are now suggesting the drive towards greener homes may be putting people’s health at risk in cases where insulation has been overdone. This can be the case in modern flats where developers keen to display their eco-friendly approach have ended up making some areas of buildings uncomfortably hot during the summer months.

The issue was raised to the fore as a result of the recent heatwave where temperatures soared into the 30s and people were left sweltering indoors with temperatures rising above the healthy limit of 25 degrees.

Ironically, heat related deaths caused by global warming are expected to triple to 7,000 people a year. The problem is particularly likely to affect the elderly, the obese and people with chronic illnesses and it is unlikely that anything can be done to reverse the drive towards better insulation for homes.

In the future there may need to be some balance restored between creating houses that don’t use more fuel than they need to during winter, yet still be cool enough to be comfortable to live in during the summer months. Fitting the right type of thermal insulation is the obvious solution to this particular problem.

Posted by admin in Home Insulation, Thermal Insulation
30
Jun
2015

Orange Tree Waste Could Be Acoustic Insulation Of the Future

Oranges are a popular citrus fruit and we consume millions of them every year. This creates quite a lot of waste products that researchers in Spain have found to be particularly useful in sound insulation.

Orange tree waste may soon be routinely used in sound insulation as a greener alternative to conventional laminated gypsum boards. In tests, boards produced using orange tree waste actually performed better than the conventional materials, which is unusual for environmentally friendly products where compromises are often made on cost and performance.

Production of the orange-tree-based insulation boards starts when trimmings are gathered and processed before being combined with polypropylene, which admittedly isn’t so environmentally friendly as tree waste, but still a significant step towards sustainability in the sound insulation industry.

In tests the insulation boards produced from orange tree waste had the potential to rate as high as 29dBA. This was a 50% improvement on the performance of conventional laminated gypsum boards.

Oranges may not be the only fruit when it comes to greener sound insulation either. Olive tree waste is also being tested and preliminary results are just as promising.

Sound insulation companies are currently considering the costs involved in using the new greener boards in the future.

Posted by admin in Building Trade, Construction, Home Insulation, Soundproofing, Thermal Insulation
12
Jun
2015

Why Poor Sound Insulation Can Be Bad For Your Health

Offices can be noisy places particularly if they happen to be in the city centre where traffic noise and the general hustle and bustle of daily life adds to noise levels.

Some people seem naturally immune to the noise around them and have the ability to switch off. There are plenty more people however who find themselves in noisy environments that actually end up damaging their health over time.

The importance of sound insulation is now much higher on the agenda when architects are designing buildings because of the effects excessive noise can have on health and well-being. The level at which sound becomes potentially bad for your health is 65Db.

This isn’t actually that high considering that this is the level of a normal conversation and much less than the ring of a telephone. Being regularly and continuously exposed to noise at this level raises the risk of stress related illness by 20%.

The reason sound over certain levels raises the risk of illness is due to the release of adrenalin. Adrenalin is not in itself harmful and can be extremely very useful to us humans. Too much of it released over long periods, however, can cause health problems.

Posted by admin in Soundproofing
23
May
2015

Traffic Noise Can Increase Your Waistline Says Study

The last thing you might expect to have an effect on your weight is noise. Yet this is what one Swedish study has discovered and this could force many people who work in offices near busy roads to consider installing better sound insulation.

Weight gain has traditionally been associated with inactivity and eating too much, but the Swedish study on the effects of noise found that noise from traffic had the potential to increase fat deposits around the waste due to the effects of cortisol production.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by the body in reaction to stress. Having too much cortisol in the body often leads to weight gain and the Swedish study of more than 5,000 people found that noise triggered an increase which led to weight gain in the majority of participants.

Road traffic noise contributed to a 0.21 cm increase in waist size for women compared to 0.16 cm for men which means the former is more likely to suffer the waist expanding effects of noise. The study also found a direct relationship between an increase in the sources of noise and the amount of fat carried around the waste.

Posted by admin in Construction, Soundproofing
10
May
2015

The Importance Of Acoustic Design In The Offices Of Today

Noise pollution was once accepted as part of working in a busy office, however much has changed in recent years as business owners see the value of acoustic design in the office.

If you happen to be sitting in an open plan office where phones are constantly ringing, this can place a considerable amount of stress on your shoulders. Noise can be distracting and often an interruption to your train of thought.

If you happen to be sitting near someone with a loud voice the situation can often become intolerable. This is the reality for many people everyday who have no power to change their office acoustics for the better as they would do at home.

Thankfully employers are waking up to the fact that environments can have a direct effect on productivity and profits in some cases. So the important thing is to raise these benefits if you happen to be a staff member suffering from the effects of office noise pollution.

Changes to office acoustics can often be quite straightforward to implement and not necessarily expensive. Interior materials for example should absorb sound. In an office the idea is to prevent sound from travelling too far where people may be having frequent conversations on the phone.

Cubicles can be contained where possible behind lightweight drywall systems which generally consist of two framed plasterboards with an air gap in between. This acts to insulate sound in that area, helping to reduce noise significantly.

This is just one of a number of sound insulation measures you can take to keep the office a pleasant place to be. Contact our experts if you would like to find out more about insulation solutions for your office.

Posted by admin in Construction, Soundproofing
16
Mar
2015

Wind Turbine Noise Pollution Study

Metropolitan Insulation are only too aware of the problems facing people living next to wind turbine farms in the UK at the moment. These farms seem to be popping up everywhere and more and more of them are coming inland and impacting on our countryside.

Whilst there are many environmental advantages for Wind Farms and there are plentiful arguments for and against their continued development, it cannot be denied that there are concerns when it comes to the noise pollution that comes from these wind turbines.

This is why the recent news that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is commissioning a study to look into the acoustics of wind turbines known as Amplitude Modulation (AM) is very welcome indeed. It is hoping to define a threshold for an appropriate noise level produced by the turbines. The review is set to finish this Spring and will add to the current Good Practice Guidance and the AM working group available here.

The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) issued a statement from William Egan, Institute President in regards to the assessment of wind farm noise;

“In doing so, our aim is to enable members of the public to have a full understanding of our work in this field during the past few years, what we are currently engaged in doing and the area of our responsibilities. We draw particular attention within the statement to the fact that we as an Institute are not involved in the setting of noise limits, which we strongly believe is a matter for the Government to decide.”

The full statement can be read here.

If wind farm noise is affecting your living conditions or you have a concern about noise pollution caused by wind turbines in your area, Metropolitan insulation can provide guidance and solutions relevant to your situation. Please call us on 0800 028 4042 to talk to one of our friendly advisors.

Posted by admin in Building Trade, Soundproofing