ONSITE SURVEY DETAILS:
A full on-site acoustic survey is always our preferred option as this allows us to take a precise reverberation time measurement of the room(s) in question and allows the engineer to experience the acoustic of the room for themselves.
The importance of this should never be underestimated, for even where the customer might simply want to achieve an improvement, having an accurate starting point can save unnecessary expense.
Even though it is generally only educational and office environments where strict target reverberation times are required, the value of this approach is not diminished in other environments as there are numerous advantages to this assessment method.
- You can be sure that you won’t be paying for any absorption that you didn’t actually need – no matter how good the remote assessment method, you always run the risk that the model used has either under or over specified the absorption.
- No matter how good the information you send us about your room, there is no replacement for us coming to site and hearing/seeing the problems for ourselves. Site visits allow us to understand the space, its users and the practicalities of applying treatment where it will be most effective.
- If we know the precise, current, reverberation time of your room then we can easily target a time that best suits the use of your room and in the most demanding environments, target a time that represents a compromise between competing requirements such as an environment where choral recitals take place, but good speech intelligibility is still required.
Our on site acoustic survey is carried out in accordance with the guidelines set out in British Standard 3382-2:2008, entitled ‘Acoustics – Measurement of room acoustic parameters – Part 2: Reverberation time in ordinary rooms’, and in the Association of Noise Consultants ‘Good Practice Guide – Acoustic Testing of Schools’.
Equipment used:
NTi XL2 Acoustic Analyser with M2230 microphone, certified Class 1, and calibrated to traceable national standards.
Once our engineer has finished taking acoustic measurements and gathered all of the information that they need, they will review their findings, prepare a report and provide you with a quotation for any products that they feel will be beneficial to improving your acoustic environment.
Our report focuses entirely on the acoustic environment within a room, and no assessment is made with regard to sound transmission (passage of sound from room to room).
Therefore the following elements will be considered:
- The cubic volume and proportions of the building;
- Architectural form;
- Surface finishes;
- Occupants’ behaviour in response to the room acoustics;
- Needs of people using the space.
Pricing.
The on-site survey is charged according to the time taken for us to travel to you, conduct the survey, analyse your data and produce the resulting report.
Our engineer’s time, travelling to you, undertaking the survey and writing up your report, is charged at £40/hr. In addition to this, we also make a charge for the cost of the engineer’s travel. This will be either 45p/mile for car travel or the price of the tickets etc, if we are able to use public transport.
As we are aware that onsite surveys can seem quite expensive, as an incentive to adopt this route, we will refund 50% of the hourly professional fee (not the travel cost) if you go on to place an order with us, based on the recommendations of the survey report.
Please note, our onsite survey is purely an acoustic investigation and we may well still require information from you relating to the construction of your ceiling and walls.
Please email us if you wish to book a survey, or simply to learn more about this service. Contact us
Please note an on site survey will require the space in question to be empty of all other people during the actual reverberation time measurements.