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ACOUSTICS


Getting to grips with excess noise on hospital sites


When dealing with sound and vibration in and around hospital sites there are many factors to consider. Here, Ken Marriott, a mechanical engineer who for many years ran his own environmental consultancy specialising in sound and vibration, draws on his extensive acoustic design and problem-solving expertise in and around hospital buildings to provide advice and guidance to healthcare engineers on protecting patients and staff against excess noise, and avoiding complaints from local residents.


In this article I plan to cover topics including: n Planning related to buildings and power generation plants.


n Health and safety sound and vibration surveys for plant rooms.


n Complaints of noise produced by hospital sites from local residents.


n Noise produced in and around hospital sites from the healthcare facilities’ own activities.


n Monitoring of building demolition and construction sound levels.


I plan to approach these topics in an anecdotal manner, thus minimising the volume of technical/mathematical content often found in articles on acoustics and vibration – the aim being to make the article as easily comprehensible as possible for non-acoustics engineers.


Acoustic engineering for hospitals The biographical section at the end of the article details some of my varied professional experience on a number of projects, including some high profile schemes. The majority of the requests for work that I receive can be divided into two types: n Acoustic design and planning. n Acoustic problems.


The acoustic design and planning is usually straightforward, and involves surveys and making sound level predictions for equipment to be used, and obtaining guaranteed/best estimate data from the equipment supplier. With larger projects this can involve a significant amount of work. Addressing the acoustic problems presents a very different scenario, in that it usually starts with receiving a telephone call where the caller reports some form of (excess) noise issue. On arriving at the site, however, I can usually see and hear what the problem is; it very rarely turns out to be a ‘bit of a noise problem’, and is more often than not quite a complex and challenging problem to address.


An internal plant room – one of the main locations within a hospital where sound levels may be above 85 dB(A).


Planning and surveying


When planning for the installation of new equipment, sound level surveys of the adjacent residential area that could be affected by plant sound levels should be undertaken. It is imperative to ensure that the local council has a clear understanding of what type of equipment, and the overall quantity of such ‘kit’, is to be installed. I have been involved in projects where the plan throughout was to install numerous different items of mechanical equipment, where planning consent was sought, but where the


council assumed – in granting it – that the plans entailed just a single item, and had only given permission accordingly. On one occasion I went to check on three large transformers that had been installed, only to be met by a council officer who argued that each should have a roof for sedum planting. My attempts to explain that transformers do not have roofs fell on deaf ears; he told me it was standard council practice to include sedum planting, and left. Sedum roofs were subsequently fitted, and fans included to cool the transformers. In another instance,


January 2021 Health Estate Journal 37


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