By Sean O’Keefe
The individual’s experience of a place starts with its purpose and then quickly flows through the instinctual repertoire of senses – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Within a home, the expectations for a person’s experience of space are harmonized by a cadre of creative minds who each specialize in one of the many parts and pieces of what it takes to put a custom home together. The architect, the builder, and the developer come to mind as figureheads. The architect is interested in views, circulation, square footage and finishes. The builder is interested in safe, efficient, risk-free construction. The developer is thinking about the permitting department, infrastructure engineering, investment partners, and home builders taking lots in a subdivided community that will become hundreds of homes. Regardless of which end of the spectrum you may be on in the design, build and develop equation, almost no one is thinking about what the home is going to sound like.
Defined by Merriam-Webster as mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (such as air), sound is an unseen constant in everyday life that affects us in ways we don’t fully realize. Instinctually, sound is our primary warning sense. A sudden sound starts a physiological process whereby the body releases cortisol, which increases the heart rate and changes breathing. Emotionally, sounds of every sort influence us. Ranging from loud to soft, sudden to constant, sounds can please us, annoy us, interest us, scare us, alert, distract, inspire, soothe, energize, electrify and infuriate. More complicated still, what may be pleasing to one can be simultaneously infuriating to another, making the experience of sound largely a matter of perspective. From the sound of things, we need to know more.
Dr. Bonnie Schnitta steps in as an expert on the subject. She is the founder of SoundSense, a full-service acoustical consulting and engineering company, based in Wainscott, New York that serves a national clientele on residential and commercial projects of every sort.
“The greatest joy in acoustic sepaaration is tht people can sleep better, study better, work better, and live better because of our ability to control sound within space.”
Dr. Bonnie Schnitta
Founder of SoundSense
“I started my career in mechanical engineering, and fell in love with vibrations,” says Schnitta succinctly of a firm founding process that stretches back to 1981. Today, after more than 40 years in her line of work, Schnitta is joined by a full staff of acousticians at SoundSense to serve a wide array of needs where sound quality is important. “The greatest joy in acoustic separation is that people can sleep better, study better, work better, and live better because of our ability to control sound within space.”
SoundSense offers consulting services to architects, engineers, home builders and homeowners. They are engaged to resolve acoustical issues ranging from the sound of plumbing and mechanical units to room-to-room and floor-to-floor transmissions. On the commercial side of design and development, SoundSense also provides hyper-specialized services for acoustic intense environments ranging from concert halls to emergency rooms. SoundSense provides installation expertise within its geographic reach and offers a collection of useful acoustical products.
“SoundSense helps designers and builders develop better acoustical separation and then helps them install it properly. Over the years, we have developed many patented and patent-pending products, which can be built into new homes or retrofit into existing homes that make a world of difference in the acoustical experience,” shares Schnitta. Within the acoustic separation division, SoundSense offers products that enhance acoustic separation in walls such as sealants, insulations and wall-applied barriers. The acoustic environment line of materials concentrates on capturing sound reverberations around a room with a collection of products designed specifically for walls, ceilings and floors.
“For years in custom and production home building, recessed lighting has been used throughout homes, often between floors. Consequently, homeowners wonder why they can hear noise from one floor to the next,” says Schnitta of the genesis of one of her many patented products. “The architect has specified an STC 65 ceiling that is now performing closer to STC 40 because of the recessed lighting. We developed a High-Hat Muffler that works with lights to trap that sound as though there wasn’t a hole in the ceiling at all.”
Within the realm of outdoor noise, in some controlled communities there are strict guidelines about noise transmission away from a home, including the disruptive sounds of chillers, generators and air handlers. Outdoor sound propagation is uniquely affected by many factors including distance, elevation and line of sight. SoundSense solves these problems with a combination of barriers, absorbers and composite materials that reduce the impact through both sound attenuation and obstruction.
“In residential real estate, homes generate sounds that may be unwanted,” continues Schnitta. “We have had cases where a new air handling unit placed on a roof could be heard in the home’s theater room and others where the same kind of thing was disturbing a neighbor further up the hill with a low-vibration noise that was only troublesome at a distance. Sound is always a multidimensional equation.”
Though she has a lifetime of experience in her field, Schnitta is proud to admit she remains eager to learn from and be inspired by others. She participates in industry forums through her long-standing memberships in both the Acoustical Society of America and INCE-USA.
Acoustical Society of America: The ASA is an international scientific society founded in 1929 dedicated to generating, disseminating, and promoting the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. Since 1929, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) has been the leading source of theoretical and experimental research results in the broad interdisciplinary subject of sound.
Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the USA: INCE-USA is a non-profit professional organization whose primary purpose is to promote, through its members, noise control solutions to environmental, product, machinery, industrial, and other noise problems. INCE-USA is a Member Society of the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering, an international consortium of organizations with interests in acoustics and noise control.
“Acoustics is a very broad field,” says Schnitta. “Whereas some are working with residential experiences, home theaters, and small recital rooms, others are working in underwater environments, ultrasound labs, and scientific fields. So, I am always keen to learn about others who are thinking in ways that I hadn’t considered.”
Over more than 40 years of experience, she has been called upon to present her expertise on more than one occasion. “One session I chaired focused on noise that comes from transportation – highways, trains, planes and buses – and the ways sounds affect the human body. More and more, we are finding people with noise sensitivity have health conditions that are being affected by sound exposure.”
In the area of human health and wellness, Schnitta believes we are only at the beginning of understanding the impact of sound on our well-being. Another of her patent-pending devices is designed specifically to test a person’s noise sensitivity.
“Architects and designers can think about sound in their design by asking clients if there are noises that bother them, and just as importantly, if there are sounds they would like to hear,” she says. Houses and buildings situated in high-wind areas are prone to movement and, therefore, some noise. Taking that into account can include everything from the structural form and building materials to organic sounds being automatically introduced in stressed moments. “Sound masking strategies are now on the rise, including integrating comforting sounds into the movement of bushings or by feeding pleasant sounds through the smart home package.”
Asked what builders ought to know, Schnitta shares that tried and true, level work done properly always makes a difference.
“For the contractors, the easiest way to think about sound is to set one side of a wall up to be completely dark and shine a light from the other side. If you can see light coming through, the wall isn’t framed or acoustically sealed correctly. If light can get through, sound can get through.”
As for homeowners, Schnitta shares that it ought to be about the client’s needs, lifestyle and experience with sound.
“There needs to be a greater appreciation for the idea that designers can customize every room to the client’s expectations for use and sound quality,” she finishes. “This goes way beyond what type of music they like. Sound is a sense, and that’s inescapable.”
