Office spaces in Houston often come with a constant barrage of noise, from constant phone ringing or shuffling footsteps; commercial construction and dedicated pre-planning steps are essential for cutting back on these noise complaints. Not only are noisy, poorly designed office spaces annoying for employees and guests alike, but they are also the number one cause of declining lease retention and profitability for building owners. When it comes to commercial construction for Houston office spaces, professionalism and quality of work extend much further than just aesthetics and square footage. It is essential to work with a commercial construction company that can deliver silence that lasts for years to come. Because of this, use this blog to learn how Keeton Construction Services uses advanced soundproofing strategies throughout every phase of our commercial construction projects, leading to complaint-free spaces and increased tenant satisfaction.
The Construction Challenge: Understanding Office Noise
Before you can understand what construction strategies go into preventing unnecessary office noise, it is imperative to realise what office noise actually is – and why it can be so detrimental to productivity. What makes noise a phenomenon is that it travels in various ways, including through air, the floor, and even dense materials like structural steel. By understanding the root causes of office noise, you can better appreciate the role of commercial construction and Keeton Construction Service in mitigating this widespread issue.
We can categorize most office noise into two sections: inside and outside noise. External noise includes traffic, construction, weather, and transit. These are typically things that are fully outside of your staff’s control.
On the other hand, internal noise is typically what causes the most commercial office noise complaints. It is most often caused by one or a combination of these three factors:
- Impact noise: This includes unavoidable aspects of everyday office life, such as footsteps or accidentally dropped objects. These are events that have a specific vertical transmission, moving only up and down.
- Airborne noise: Airborne noise is anything that travels through the air, including speech, office equipment movement, or music. This includes sound that moves both horizontally and vertically.
- Mechanical noise: This includes HVAC humming, plumbing noises, and elevator noise. Typically, this category contains structurally born vibrations.
What’s wrong with a bit of background noise? The truth is that office noise, especially in modern, open-concept commercial office spaces, can increase negative moods during the workday by 25%, leading to poor productivity and decreased employee morale. Because of this, it is important to work with a professional commercial construction company like Keeton Construction Services in Houston from the beginning to the very end of your upcoming office construction project.
Building Silence: Minimally Acoustic Commercial Construction
A quiet, productive workspace is never just a happy accident; it requires meticulously planned and engineered commercial construction. In most cases, the difference between a high-performing, productive office space and a space consistently plagued by tenant noise complaints is typically decided during phase one of construction planning. At Keeton Construction Services, we prioritize using intelligent modeling systems to help mitigate noise before it even begins, helping set your commercial office space up for success.
A large portion of this process can be done during the site planning portion of commercial construction. Things such as building orientation in relation to nearby highways or roads, as well as internal spaces that might be louder, like cafeterias or gyms, can all contribute to poorly distributed acoustic weight.
Additionally, flanking paths through things such as ducts and ceilings can also be a large factor during the planning phase. This is because sound typically travels around barriers, meaning it thrives and echoes when passing through things like air ducts or dropped ceilings, even structural beams. Because of this, we aim to account for the weakest link in the plan before assembling other aspects of your commercial construction project.
Commercial Construction Techniques for Noise Control
While design specifications can set your commercial construction project up for success, the quality of work is what determines the final outcome of your office building’s acoustic control. In this section of the blog, you will learn what specific techniques our team at Keeton Construction Services uses to control noise and help keep your tenants satisfied.
The first non-negotiable techniques we call mass and decoupling. These form the twin pillars of soundproofing in commercial construction. Mass uses a double layer of drywall on opposite sides of a partition. In many cases, we can also use sound-dampening materials, such as fiberglass batt insulation, in the cavities to further prevent sound from passing through. Decoupling uses a strong channel or clips to help break the direct connection between the drywall and the studs in order to avoid vibration.
When it comes to flooring, this can also be an integral aspect of sound dampening during the commercial construction process. By choosing to use an acoustic underlayment, such as materials such as rubber, recycled cork, or some types of foam, transfer of noise between floors can be significantly reduced. It is extremely important for there to be proper base-of-wall details and seals in place in order to help keep noise locked into one space, instead of transferring between rooms.
Mechanical Noise Isolation Tactics in Commercial Construction
The final aspect of ensuring that your commercial construction project ends with a sealed, silent office space is taming the beast of mechanical noise within a building. Mechanical noise is one of the hardest types of noise to reduce, as it is created through vibrations that can pass through all structures, even the best wall assembly jobs.
When it comes to a solution for this specific aspect of commercial construction and noise control, vibration isolation is key. By using spring-based or neoprene isolators under air handlers, chillers, or pumps, we can greatly reduce the structural-borne vibration from impacting the building frame and resulting in that familiar, inescapable hum.
Another imperative aspect of preventing structural vibrations from causing office noise is ductwork attenuation. The three primary aspects of this technique include:
- Using an acoustic duct liner in both supply and return air pathways.
- Strategic placement of duct silencers or mufflers in order to control fan noise.
- Maintaining a low air velocity to reduce air diffusing noise.
At Keeton Construction Services, we approach every commercial construction project like a unique puzzle – finding the best solution for your unique needs to provide the best outcome.
The Competitive Advantage of Silence in Commercial Buildings
Creating a productive, quiet, and professional environment requires meticulous planning, accurate installation, and, most importantly, expert knowledge. At Keeton Construction Services, we understand that buildings in Houston’s high-performing office sectors cannot just be visually pleasing. They must be able to create a space where employees are able to communicate well and focus fully throughout the day without the irritating buzz of side conversations and mechanical screeching. If you’re looking to build a new commercial office space in Houston, but want to prioritize designing a space that encourages productivity and peace over constant noise and distractions, then our team of professional general contractors is the perfect solution. Don’t settle for ordinary and deal with decades of noise complaints and poor productivity. Contact Keeton Construction Services today for a free commercial construction estimate for your new Houston office building.