Working Ergonomically with Sound Insulation in the Office

Everyday life in the office is often noisy and many people find it stressful. Ringing phones, loud colleagues, noisy printers and coffee machines. On some days, everything is too much for some people. And so various studies on the subject how to soundproof office cubicle also prove that noise at the workplace is perceived by many employees as a stress factor that can lead to dissatisfaction. It has also been scientifically proven that constant noise can cause damage to health, which is why noise protection measures in offices, public buildings, kindergartens and schools are regulated by law.

Diffuse noise and reverberation in the office

Many people experience the problem with ambient noise in the form of strong reverberation in their everyday office life. Thus, sound insulation plays an important role especially in multi-person offices and open-plan offices. But small offices are often affected as well. Room acoustics can quickly become a major burden when sound-reflecting walls and surfaces come together with little furniture. Telephone conversations, meetings or noise from the printer or copier ensure that concentration is massively impaired. In multi-person offices with very poor acoustics, even just one person on the phone can create a work environment that inhibits concentration. In small offices, the success of meetings or telephone calls can suffer greatly to the point of avoiding such situations. Sound insulation in the office is therefore an important factor in proper workplace design.

Sound attenuators improve concentration and well-being in the office

Well placed sound attenuators in the workplace improve concentration and employee satisfaction as well as visually enhancing the corporate design and existing interior design. Soundproofing your office no longer means installing gray perforated coffered ceilings, but it can also greatly enhance the look of the room. From an exclusive selection of motifs by contemporary artists and photographers we can create a custom design concept for you on request or our designers will develop individual motifs according to your ideas.

Where are the soundproofing elements installed?

For the best possible results when installing elements for sound insulation in the office, many factors must be taken into account. For example, large rooms give different conditions than small rooms. Those with high ceilings behave differently than rooms with normal height. A room with little furniture requires different measures than a fully equipped room and the amount of people present in relation to the room also plays a role. Last but not least, the use of the room is also of key importance, for example making phone calls versus computer work or group discussions as they take place in seminar rooms or conference rooms.

Well-placed acoustic elements actively take noise out of the room – they significantly reduce the prevailing sounds. In many rooms, in addition to the noise generated directly by people and machines, the so-called reverberation of the overlapping sounds in the room is an immense problem. Reverberation is perceived via a significantly increased noise level. It means that the existing sounds become even more because they are reflected from different surfaces – they are multiplied. In most offices, this effect can be very well remedied with acoustic pictures hung on the wall. You can choose from various colors and predefined as well as individual motifs.

In practice, for example, modern meeting rooms are usually built with a lot of glass. The use of these hard, extremely sound-reflecting wall materials, as well as very sparse furniture, makes for extremely poor acoustics. For this reason, at least one of the opposing sides should be fitted with sound-absorbing absorbers. We recommend that you install approx. 20% of the largest wall surface as an absorber surface in the room.

Why soundproofing in the office is so important for the health of all employees

It should be well known that noise is a huge stressor. However, the irrevocable damage to health is not yet so publicized. Stress causes a chain reaction in the autonomic nervous system and in the endocrine system. If noise protection in the office is not guaranteed, employees risk becoming more susceptible to cardiovascular disease later in life.

Properly position soundproofing

Properly placed soundproofing in an office increases the concentration of all employees and therefore increases the productivity of daily office work. There are suitable sound insulation elements for any type of office to achieve the sound protection goals: sound absorbers for suspended ceilings, functional absorption panels for walls or ceilings, or designer acoustic images as acoustic elements for walls. A nice side effect in addition to the actual purpose of sound insulation is that acoustic images in particular have beautiful stylistic accents. Introduce it to the room and thus improve the aesthetics of the office space in the long run. This makes soundproofing in the office comprehensive.

How are soundproofing elements installed?

Installing soundproofing elements, such as acoustic paintings for the office, is very simple: acoustically effective wall paintings are attached to simple hangers just like regular paintings. Each acoustic painting has two hangers on the back, so that the direct attachment is maintained at all times.

Sound attenuation and sound insulation for less noise in the office

Sound attenuation refers to the prevention of sound propagation through the absorption of airborne sound. Sound absorption converts sound energy into inaudible vibrational energy waves, thus reducing reflection. Sound insulation, which is to be distinguished from this, refers to the obstruction of sound propagation from airborne sound or structure-borne sound into adjacent rooms by sound reflection of the propagating sound.

The absorption of airborne sound is particularly efficient in open-pored materials that have a large surface area. Sound-absorbing elements are useful and purposeful for improving the acoustic properties of rooms. Sound attenuation or sound absorption are aspects of room acoustics.

Good room acoustics ensure optimal concentration and speech intelligibility among colleagues and customers. Noise in the office is reduced and employee satisfaction increases.