For projects in Chicago
Hospital and healthcare acoustics in Chicago
Two duties at once: privacy where confidential conversations happen, and a lower noise floor where people are trying to rest. Hygiene and cleanability rule out a lot of products before acoustics is even discussed. Packaged rooftop units and ducted forced air are standard, so noise arrives through the duct rather than through the wall. Lining the first three metres of duct and treating the return path is usually the whole job.
- Consulting room privacy
- Speech privacy between rooms, which is partition, door and ceiling void work.
- Ward noise floor
- Alarms, trolleys and staff conversation in hard corridors. Absorption at the ceiling.
- Cleanability
- Non shedding, non absorbent surfaces that survive a cleaning regime.
- Quote
- From a plan and a section, within 48 hours
01 / The material
What you are buying, and what it fixes in Chicago
Two duties at once: privacy where confidential conversations happen, and a lower noise floor where people are trying to rest. Hygiene and cleanability rule out a lot of products before acoustics is even discussed.
Packaged rooftop units and ducted forced air are standard, so noise arrives through the duct rather than through the wall. Lining the first three metres of duct and treating the return path is usually the whole job.
Work reaching us from Chicago is mostly two-flats and three-flats, high-rise apartments, offices, venues, schools, clinics.
- Elevated rail past the window Trains at window height put noise in through the glazing, not through the wall. The facade is where the money should go first.
- No port, so plan the inland leg Everything arrives at a coast and rails in. We quote the sea leg and the inland leg separately.
- Brick outside, timber inside Two-flats and three-flats have solid masonry outside and timber floors between families. Footfall travels down and masonry does nothing about it.
- Consulting room privacy Speech privacy between rooms, which is partition, door and ceiling void work.
Full specification
Thickness, density, NRC by frequency, fire class, standard sizes and build-up detail for healthcare acoustics are on the main product page. This page covers what that means for a project in Chicago.
02 / The build-up
The build-up, layer by layer
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Layer 1
PET felt acoustic panels
A rigid non-woven panel pressed from 100% polyester fibre, a large part of it recycled. In Chicago, packaged rooftop units and ducted forced air are standard, so noise arrives through the duct rather than through the wall. Lining the first three metres of duct and treating the return path is usually the whole job.
Over a porous backing. Panel over mineral or PET backing where the room needs genuine low mid control.
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Layer 2
Acoustic carpet and rugs
A tile carpet with a dense polyester face on a felt backing. In Chicago, churches, school gyms and multipurpose halls double as performance spaces, which means a room designed for neither speech nor music has to carry both.
Zoned. Carpet in the circulation and meeting zones, hard floor elsewhere, so the treatment sits where the noise is made.
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Layer 3
Acoustic panels
The full absorber range rather than one product: plain PET felt, printed felt, grooved panels and fabric finishes, chosen by how the room is used and how it has to look. In Chicago, public school buildings run long corridors with hard floors and lay-in tile ceilings that were chosen for cost, not for speech. Classroom reverberation and corridor spill are the two complaints, and both respond to ceiling area rather than wall panels.
Mixed finish. Plain felt where it is out of eye line, printed or grooved where it is seen.
For a Chicago practice, the useful thing is a detail you can put in a drawing set, not a brochure. See how we support architects.
03 / Local conditions
What decides the build-up in Chicago
- Elevated rail past the window
Trains at window height put noise in through the glazing, not through the wall. The facade is where the money should go first.
- No port, so plan the inland leg
Everything arrives at a coast and rails in. We quote the sea leg and the inland leg separately.
- Brick outside, timber inside
Two-flats and three-flats have solid masonry outside and timber floors between families. Footfall travels down and masonry does nothing about it.
- Sealed against hard winters
Buildings close up for months and mechanical systems run hard, so sound accumulates inside rather than escaping.
- Plant and HVAC
Packaged rooftop units and ducted forced air are standard, so noise arrives through the duct rather than through the wall. Lining the first three metres of duct and treating the return path is usually the whole job.
04 / Room by room
Room by room, on a typical Chicago job
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Consulting room privacy
Speech privacy between rooms, which is partition, door and ceiling void work. Trains at window height put noise in through the glazing, not through the wall. The facade is where the money should go first.
- PET felt acoustic panels, 100% PET non-woven, no added binder
- SoundBlanket mass loaded vinyl, STC 30, 5.25 kg per sq m
- Acoustic panels, Cut pattern in PET felt, adds visual rhythm without changing the absorber
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Ward noise floor
Alarms, trolleys and staff conversation in hard corridors. Absorption at the ceiling. Everything arrives at a coast and rails in. We quote the sea leg and the inland leg separately.
- PET felt acoustic panels, 9, 12, 18 and 24 mm standard, tolerance plus or minus 5 percent
- SoundBlanket mass loaded vinyl, STC 34, 8.4 kg per sq m
- Acoustic panels, ASTM C423
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Cleanability
Non shedding, non absorbent surfaces that survive a cleaning regime. Two-flats and three-flats have solid masonry outside and timber floors between families. Footfall travels down and masonry does nothing about it.
- PET felt acoustic panels, 4 to 24 mm
- SoundBlanket mass loaded vinyl, 12.6 kg per sq m, STC on request
- Acoustic panels, 9 to 24 mm, 1220 x 2440 mm standard, up to 2440 x 4270 mm, 1200 to 3600 GSM
Designers get colour, pattern and CNC options with the absorption figure attached to each. See how we work with interior designers.
04 / Climate and durability
The Chicago climate decides the material list
Chicago is mild summers and cold, wet winters, and that narrows the material list before acoustics is discussed.
Cold external walls and long heating seasons make condensation behind a lining the thing to design out. PET felt is unaffected by damp air.
The failure we design against here is condensation and cold bridging behind new linings.
If a consultant has set the target, we will quote against their figures rather than ours, and stay out of the scope they own. More on working with acoustic consultants.
06 / Read this first
The six errors that cost the most
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Fabric wrapped products in a clinical area
Noise with a source is fixed at the source. Treating the receiving room is the expensive way to get a small result.
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Absorption used where privacy was the requirement
Privacy is a transmission problem. Absorption makes the room sound nicer and does not stop anyone hearing through the wall.
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Ceiling void left open above a partition
Square metre for square metre the ceiling is the cheapest result in the room. Skipping it and buying wall panels instead is the most common way to overspend.
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Treating it as a generic Chicago job
Trains at window height put noise in through the glazing, not through the wall. The facade is where the money should go first.
05 / Route to site
What the route into Chicago actually looks like
| Ships from | Palwal, Haryana, India |
|---|---|
| Arrives at | An East or Gulf coast port, then rail and road inland |
| Dispatch | 4 to 7 working days |
| Freight | Sea, then rail inland |
| Support | Drawings, build-ups, BOQ and material that arrives complete |
Standard items dispatch in 4 to 7 working days. The sea leg from India is long, so plan the full door to door window into the programme. We give real dates, not optimistic ones.
Sea freight into an East or Gulf coast port, then rail and road to Chicago. Air freight for samples and urgent quantities.
Questions from Chicago projects
What makes hospital and healthcare acoustics different in Chicago?
Packaged rooftop units and ducted forced air are standard, so noise arrives through the duct rather than through the wall. Lining the first three metres of duct and treating the return path is usually the whole job. Trains at window height put noise in through the glazing, not through the wall. The facade is where the money should go first.
Where should the budget go first on a Chicago project?
Consulting room privacy. Speech privacy between rooms, which is partition, door and ceiling void work. Ward noise floor. Alarms, trolleys and staff conversation in hard corridors. Absorption at the ceiling.
Do you have an office or installation team in Chicago?
No. We manufacture in India and supply into Chicago. We give you drawings, build-ups, a BOQ and material that arrives complete, and we will tell you plainly when a job needs a local contractor we cannot be.
How does material get to a Chicago site?
ships from: Palwal, Haryana, India, arrives at: An East or Gulf coast port, then rail and road inland, dispatch: 4 to 7 working days. Standard items dispatch in 4 to 7 working days. The sea leg from India is long, so plan the full door to door window into the programme. We give real dates, not optimistic ones.
What goes wrong most often on this kind of project?
Fabric wrapped products in a clinical area. Absorption used where privacy was the requirement.
What do you need from us to quote?
A plan, a section through the critical partition or ceiling, and what the room is for. From that we can give a build-up and a BOQ rather than a price per square foot.
Next step
Tell us the room, we will tell you the build-up
We quote from drawings, not from a square foot rate. Send a plan and the section through the critical wall or ceiling and you will get something you can actually build from.