You are here >   Noise complaints
  |  Login
September 2012 Digital Edition
 
 
 
http://www.twitter.com/cdnapartmentmaghttp://www.twitter.com/cdnapartmentmaghttp://www.twitter.com/cdnapartmentmag

 

 

 
 
 


 
 



 

Noise complaints


Email  

 

                                                                                                                                                      
By Amie Silverwood

The Canadian building code lacks regulation to protect condominium buyers from noise issues. It doesn’t specify a limit to impact isolation class (IIC), the sound of a heel hitting the hardwood floor in the unit above. It does specify that condos must meet a sound transmission class (STC) of 50, which applies to airborne noise but even this test is out of date and inadequate according to Bill Wilkinson Jr., Co-owner of Wilrep Ltd. a 35-year old sound and vibration control company.

“STC was invented as a measurement back in 1961. It only takes into account frequencies between 125 Hz to 4000 Hz. All the sound we care about today, the thump, thump is all below 125 Hz. Back in 1960, you could not go out and buy a 200 watt subwoofer that you could plug into your computer. It didn’t exist.

 

“The heel drop as you walk across the floor is well below 100 Hz. You don’t have to meet it; you don’t have to worry about it. You can pump as much of this low frequency stuff though a building assembly as you want and as a developer, you are immune to that.”

Our building code should be updated to provide condo dwellers with the same peace and quiet that exists in developments in the United States and Europe where IIC is regulated.

“In both of those geographic areas, you will be sued if you do not meet proper IIC values per building structures. They tell you that you must meet an IIC of 50 or greater – in Europe it’s greater than that. Europe is way ahead of us technically. But in Canada, you’re immune to it. So in other words, if I put hardwood into my suite, and someone below me is all upset by it, whatever. Our building code is third world.”

Developers will often install cheap underlayments to help silence echoing footsteps but these efforts will fail once owners move in with the weight of their furnishings compacting foam and eliminating any sound control properties.

Once developers have moved on to another project, any sound issues become the management’s issue though they have very little power to solve these types of problems. The solution is to replace underlayments with higher quality rubber ones and unit owners who are irritated by their neighbours’ movements can opt for drop ceilings and sound masking technologies that can provide them with some sense of privacy and isolation they seek.

Boards can recommend these alterations to those who complain but cannot require that any resident tear up their flooring to replace failing underlayments. Boards can, however, specify that unit owners use high quality underlayments when installing new flooring.

Wilkinson recommends specific wording when writing bylaws. “It can’t crush out (like foam), it can’t age harden (like cork) and it can’t wick water (like felt). Because all of those things will eventually fail.”

For more information on noise issues in condominiums, please contact Lina Trunina for the September issue of CondoBusiness at (416) 512-8186 ext. 232.

< Back

 

 

Copyright © CondoBusiness All rights reserved.

 



 


);