interiors Pipes of peace
Victoria Willis, product manager for Geberit, provides an overview of the basics when it comes to achieving good acoustics in bathroom design, and proposes an alternative approach to existing inadequate standards.
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where reducing sound transmission to adjacent rooms is an extremely important task to get right, particularly in hotels and apartments. A well-designed bathroom should not only be functional and
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stylish, it must ensure privacy for its users, and minimised disturbance for those outside of the bathroom. For architects and specifiers working on hotels and apartments, particularly of the high-end variety, reducing noise is a priority. A quiet bathroom is something all projects should strive for
but in luxury developments in particular it should seen as an intrinsic feature. Many high-end hotel developments now stipulate that bathrooms should create no more than 25 dBs in adjacent rooms, so there is no place for clunky pipes and excessive flushing noises. Excessive sound caused by flushing, cisterns filling and water travelling through the pipes can be combatted using good
ood building design is about the whole range of senses and what you can’t see as much as what you can. This is never more true than in the bathroom,
bathroom design and product choices. Unacceptable washroom noises are not an inevitability. To achieve a peaceful bathroom, every element must be considered; from where the bathroom resides in the building, to the type and configuration of drainage pipes, sanitaryware and how it’s installed.
Unrealistic standards
Pipes travelling through a building, particularly one with many floors and multiple bathrooms, are one of the key sources of noise problems. However the standards in place to combat this do not go far enough to ensure they are fit for purpose, in our opinion. EN 14366, which deals with drainage pipework, measures
noise generated by pipes; within a building. Drainage pipe noise is measured without connections to appliances, and in an artificial room layout. Pipework is exposed, causing airborne noise that is unlikely in a real bathroom and solid-borne sound is measured through a concrete wall. In short all of this adds up to an unrealistic scenario. Toilet flushing, filling noise and
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