SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | 
RSS | REPRINTS
New Approaches to Quiet Buildings Can Help Address Climate Change
Published: November 07, 2007
 |
By Kevin Surace
If everyone in the U.S. lived in a condo, apartment or town home in an urban setting, we could cut potentially carbon emissions by 1 billion metric tons or more. That is approximately what Italy and the United Kingdom generate, combined.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases have clearly and undeniably changed our climate forever by increasing temperatures. Interestingly, it turns out that moving back to urban areas could reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent or more, since most people who live in cities also work close by. They take public transportation, walk or even ride a bike — taking millions of cars off the road every day.
And smaller urban dwellings also tend to be built more tightly, with more insulation, and heating can be very efficient, with most heat loss occurring into an adjacent unit (inadvertently sharing some energy). The CO2 generated from the heating and cooling of condos can be 70 percent less than that from a single-family home. Likewise, the amount of landscaping to water is near zero (reducing CO2 emissions from pumping irrigation water to the home and also saving precious clean water).
Plus, the amount of materials used to build a condo versus a single-family home can be 30 to 50 percent less, reducing CO2 emissions from manufacturing these items (actually a major source of CO2), as well as from transportation to the jobsite and installation time and energy.
However, the number-one complaint of occupants these days is noise. Noise from the street, noise from neighbors, noise when trying to sleep. Often, it is this noise that keeps people from moving into urban environments, and thus continuing to generate more CO2.
According to a 2007 report by the World Health Organization, excessive noise in everyday life is responsible for unhappiness, poor learning, poor concentration, stress, poor sleep and overall crankiness — even death. Yes, you read it correctly — death. According to the report, three percent of heart attack deaths can be attributed to noise in everyday life. This is the ultimate wake-up call.
What to do? Well, technology now exists to deal easily and cost effectively with both street noise and neighbor (party wall) noise.
Street noise can be addressed by newer, high-Sound Transmission Class (STC) windows and doors. Sound Transmission Class measures how much noise gets through a given material. High-quality, dual-pane windows from almost every major manufacturer typically have an STC rating of only 27 to 29. This is adequate for a quiet street, but not acceptable for an urban setting. High-STC windows from several manufacturers now exist that raise STC values to 38 to 42 or more, which amounts to 50 to 60 percent less noise.
Of course, if you don’t ask your builder for high-STC windows, you may not get them. They can cost three times what standard windows do. But they are worth it. Residents will sleep better and be less agitated every day. The cost adds less than a few dollars a month on the mortgage.
Party walls can be handled properly or poorly; often — and unfortunately — it is the latter. Old techniques such as resilient channels can fail to deliver the targeted noise reduction performance.
With the rise in home theaters, party walls should be STC 60 to 65 or even higher. But decades-old laws require only STC 50 walls (or STC 45 after installation), which is barely enough to isolate simple conversation.
It used to be difficult to achieve wall STCs of 65 or more, but that changed with the introduction of soundproof drywall in 2003 from suppliers like ourselves. This is a newer category of products that actually saves developers money and provides significantly improved STC values. STC 50, 60, 70 and even 80 walls have been built and tested for several years now using these products.
While the drywall material itself is more expensive than standard drywall, we’ve found that overall, it can be cheaper to hit a given STC value than with older systems and methods (including time and labor) and is much more reliable. So, developers can save money and multifamily occupants may never hear their neighbors again.
Floor/ceiling systems can suffer from similar issues in units with neighbors above or below. Again, new technologies exist to deal with this, including the use of soundproof drywall on the ceilings and damped subfloors above, plus advanced flooring isolation.
What this leads us to is the important and undeniable connection between quiet living environments and climate change. According to a 2001 survey completed by the National Research Council of Canada, there is a direct tie between people wanting to stay where they currently live and the STC values of party walls. For STCs of 60, some 75 percent of respondents were happy with their environment and wished to stay. As the STC value dropped to 40, a full 45 percent wanted to move out. Noise was a big complaint at that level. If people are unhappy in their condo, they will leave and tell others to stay away as well.
If we are to affect climate change through urbanization (and we must), we also must deal with the noise issue directly. This isn’t about saving a few dollars or doing it the old way because it’s good enough to meet code. Instead, it is about significantly decreasing CO2 emissions while giving the home-buying public good reasons to move into and enjoy quality urban settings. They will do that only if builders, developers and building owners address their number one complaint: noise.
It is time for all parties in the multifamily housing value chain to take responsibility for reducing noise, improving quality of life, and making it easier to have quality, low carbon-footprint urban living — in both new construction and retrofits. Buyers should demand more info about quiet before they buy. Manufacturers should drive awareness of quiet through education.
Finally, builders and property owners should respond to their customers’ demands for quieter places to live by installing high-STC windows, doors and walls in their projects. If builders and owners drag their feet, they will bear some of the blame when buyers find themselves in the 45 percent bracket who want to move to the suburbs where they can do more harm to the environment. If all parties in the multifamily industry do their part, the applause from condo-dwellers and the environment will be deafening.
Save the planet…build a really quiet condo.
Kevin Surace is CEO of Serious Materials. Surace earned his degree in electrical engineering technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology and holds multiple patents.
Voted one of the most promising companies at the 2007 Cleantech Forum, Serious Materials manufactures advanced materials for sustainable building construction. These include QuietRock soundproof drywall and the upcoming EcoRock wallboard, designed to produce 90 percent less CO2 during manufacture than gypsum drywall.
