Sound Absorption for Comfortable Living
“That tiny crack that runs around your door transmits more sound than you would know”
Noise is a daily occurrence that we all endure to a certain degree from noisy kettles, screaming children, loud TVs and the deafening thud of a bass. There’s sometimes little peace in ones day. Ongoing excessive noise is not only aggravating it can actually be harmful to your ears and has a significant impact on the way our spaces work in the home.
When it comes to residential design, the acoustics, (the way in which the structural characteristics of a space relate to how well sound can be heard) although a key design feature, are rarely considered during the building process and sometimes only tackled during a renovation.
Soundwaves seep through doors, windows, ceilings and cracks, so how do you reduce unwanted sound from affecting your day to day activities?
Hard flat surfaces tend to bounce sound waves around, sometimes creating a lasting echo effect if the surfaces are parallel walls. The softer and less uniform the surface, the less opportunity sound has to bounce off. Textiles, including drapery and upholstered furniture and furnishings not only deliver a design aesthetic they also play a significant role in the absorption of sound.
However not all textiles have equal sound absorption qualities however. The level of sound absorption is dependent upon a textile’s weight, composition, and/or construction. Generally (due to the large vertical mass) drapery provides the main textile source of sound absorption however, there are several other ways to achieve this.
To decrease the level of sound in a room you need to dampen the sound waves. This can be achieved by adding surfaces that absorb the sound (or reverberation) so the sound doesn’t bounce from one thing to another.
Here are some sound absorbing ideas that you can implement fairly simply into your home:
- Acoustic panels/tiles: These come in a range of colours and fabric styles and can be designed into your interior decor. The purpose of acoustic panels is to reduce, but not entirely eliminate, resonance within the room.
- Drapery: Fabrics are an effective solution for managing sound. The more drapery folds, the more sound absorption. Hanging a curtain a small distance off the wall increases sound absorption and softening opposing walls reduces sound waves from travelling wall to wall
- Upholstered furniture: The fabrics on your upholstered furniture also help to reduce sound waves. The thicker the fabric and foam the better. Add cushions and other textiles throughout a space for ultimate sound absorption.
- Cork flooring: While it may not be fashionable of late, cork is one of the best materials for sound absorption. Made up of a honeycomb design of air-sealed cells made of the bark of the cork oak. The cells each absorb the vibrations of sound, preventing those sounds from passing through to the other side. Cork reduces sound and noise vibration by trapping it in its cell structure. It reduces the sound transmission of sound through walls and absorbs the impact of feet through the floor to the ceiling below.
- Concrete flooring: Surprisingly, lightweight porous concrete can be effective in absorbing sound (however it essentially transmits the sounds through to the next room too).
- Carpets, rugs and padding: If your floors are timber, tiles or linoleum on subfloor concrete, you may want to try rugs or carpet coupled with a sound-absorbing underlay or foam rubber backing.
- Floating hardwood: This type of flooring installation includes a gap between the subfloor and your actual floors, which effectively dampens sound.
- Fabric pendant lamps/floor lamps: Update your light shades with a textile shade, the thicker the better. Every textile in a space will help.
A combination of the techniques above, depending on your budget and skill level should help in the overall acoustics in your home. Below we have outlined a selection of fabrics from our range that offer great sound absorption qualities due to the high level of either wool content, thickness and/or construction.
National average asking price virtually unchanged for over a year
Since January 2023, the national average asking price has remained stable. At $868,877, it is down a marginal 0.6% on April last year. The national average asking price has remained below $900,000 since December 2022, a significant decrease from the market peak in January 2022 when it exceeded $1 million.
“As we move into the winter months, we typically see a cooling market, and in 2024, this is combined with a softening economy. It will be interesting to see how these factors play out for the property market in the coming months,” says Sarah Wood, CEO of realestate.co.nz
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ANZAC DAY
Half a world away from dawn services in Australia & New Zealand, a small group of dignitaries will meet in Malta this Anzac Day among the neat rows of headstones at sun-baked Pieta Military Cemetery just outside Valletta – as they have since 1916 – to commemorate a moving but largely forgotten chapter of Gallipoli lore.
It is the story of how a tiny, ancient, impoverished and battle-scarred nation in the centre of the Mediterranean opened its arms and hearts to care for thousands of wounded, traumatised and sick young Anzacs, many of them still teenagers, who arrived aboard a flotilla of blood-soaked hospital ships from the battlefields of Gallipoli.
While most of the 57,950 soldiers evacuated to Malta recovered and eventually left, some 202 Australians and 72 New Zealanders did not, and are in war cemeteries across the archipelago.
Apart from their graves hewn from the parched, rocky Maltese earth, there is little other physical evidence the Anzacs were ever in Malta, despite the enormity of their presence over a century ago.
The voyage across the Eastern Mediterranean in these makeshift hospital ships from the Gallipoli Peninsula to Malta was not an easy one. It took the steam ships up to eight days to cover the 1163-kilometre journey.
At the beginning of April 1915, there were 824 military hospital beds in Malta. At the end of May 1915, there were more than 6000 in 14 hospitals spread all over the island. At its peak there were 25,522 beds in 28 hospitals, with the highest number of patients on any one day a staggering 16,004.
We will remember them 🥀 🌺
(article written by Andrew Hornery a senior journalist and former Private Sydney columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald).
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