Page 12 - New Jersey Cooperator January 2019

D o you remember when you were a kid that the closest thing you had to a cell phone at the time was two cups with a string tautly at- tached between them, and then speaking into one cup to see if your friend hold- ing the other could hear you? That long- ago game worked because sound travels along rigid pathways. If you let the string between the cups go slack, the sound doesn’t travel. That’s all you really need to know to understand soundproofing – and you had already learned it in kinder- garten. The ABC’s of Sound – and Soundproofing Sarah Marsh, President of MAAI Marsh Archi- tects in New York City, says: “There’s no such thing as soundproof- ing; rather the proper term is sound attenu- ation.” Sound attenuation is the effective reduction of sound – not necessarily its elimination. M i c hel e Boddewyn and Alan Gaynor, President and Founding Principal respectively of the New York City firm Boddewyn Gaynor Architects, explain that noise in multifamily buildings can be broadly divided between two general categories: airborne noise and structural noise. Air- borne noise filters in from adjacent units and outside. It includes things such as music from a stereo, raised voices, or the rumble of the garbage truck at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. Structural noise has to do with reverberations that come through the actual building structure – so the reviled ‘footfalls’ of your upstairs neighbor’s children and her high-heeled shoes clacking against the floor at the same time every day count as structural noise. Solutions for these different types of noise vary in approach. In reality, the underlying science behind the solutions is pretty much always the same: relax the string. An Unintentional History Urban multifamily housing can be pretty much divided into three categories as far as sound is concerned. The first pe- riod stretches from World War I through the pre-World War II construction boom, and then on to the mid-1960s, when construction methods began to change for both economical and technological reasons. The second period covers the years from the late 1960s and early 1970s through the early 1990s. The third period begins in the 1990s and brings us to the present. Older buildings (of- ten referred as prewar) were heavier, built with more layers and solid materials. “Sound was less of an issue be- fore World War II,” says Boddewyn. And adds Gaynor: “They had plaster walls and used gypsum block, and had high ceilings. They also used lots of concrete fill, which is like rubble, so it’s pretty quiet. There are many layers.” Kevin White, Owner of Brooklyn In- sulation and Soundproofing, which has offices in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, says: “The old buildings were soundproofed by density. Everything back in the day was built solid, and ex- tremely dense. The denser the floor or wall, the harder it is for that sound to transmit through.” Mid-Century Change From the late 1960s onward, “build- ers went for lighter-weight materials like sheetrock and studs, so you have much more sound transfer,” Boddewyn says. This has led to more issues with both air- borne and structural noise. And accord- ing to Marsh, the level of noise in a build- ing “has to do with math. And developers aren’t using math in their projects. They build as they do because they can – it’s all about the cost of the materials. A lot MAINTENANCE 12 THE NEW JERSEY COOPERATOR —JANUARY 2019 NJCOOPERATOR.COM Soundproofi ng Multifamily Silence Technology BY A J SIDRANSKY “Th e old buildings were soundproofed by density. Everything back in the day was built solid, and ex- tremely dense. Th e denser the fl oor or wall, the hard- er it is for that sound to transmit through.” — Kevin White You get what you inspect not what you expect Professionally Managing Properties in New Jersey and New York for over 25 years Transparency Accountability Proven Systems Experience Cervelli Real Estate & Property Management 1 Marine Plaza, Suite 304 North Bergen, NJ 07047 james@realestatenj.com www.realestatenj.com P:201.868.6300 F:201.868.6055