Acoustic Solution for Sheet-Piling Ceilings

A living room with too much reverberation
In this showcase we explain you how we, together with a customer, improved the acoustics of a living room that contained a lot of hard materials. Consisting of sheet-piling profiles, especially the ceiling caused a lot of reverberation. We devised a unique solution to this sound problem.

The more a room reverberates, the more sound issues at hand. Having conversations can be more difficult: the bigger the distance between you and your correspondent, the stronger the intelligibility. Because of this, more concentration is required in order to follow conversations, plus, those present need to talk louder. On top of that, music and TV will sound way worse, even though this doesn't have anything to do with the devices themselves. In the long run, bad acoustics may even cause fatigue, headaches, stress or other health issues. This seems terrible, but solving this type of sound issue is easier than you might think.

The sound problem: a steel ceiling made from sheet-piling profiles
Many buildings are equipped with sheet-piling profiles that are used to finish ceilings or walls. These profiles are made from thin sheet metal. This material is relatively cheap and lightweight, making it an ideal construction material. Acoustically speaking, quite the opposite, theses profiles cause lots of reverberation, since they constitute a hard surface. In homes, we don't encounter them a lot yet, but in this customer's living room, the black varnished sheet-piling profiles functioned as the ceiling. Further, the nicely decorated interior consisted of many more additional 'hard' materials (i.e. materials that do not or hardly absorb any sound).

Solution: customized black Akotherm SF absorbing panels
We customized black Akotherm SF panels by cutting them in a format that fitted exactly between the ceilings profile. For this project we made enough to equip the entire ceiling with this sound absorbing material. The panels could easily be attached to the ceiling using Stauf Extreme Tack adhesive paste. Due to the colour of the black Akotherm SF, they barely stand out against the rest of the ceiling. If your ceiling is white or grey, you can make use of Flamex Basic, same result, different material. A week after installation we received the following message and photos from this customer:

"The reverberation issue has been solved indeed, what a relief! Now, we can normally talk again and we understand each other well. We can watch television without feeling the need to turn up the volume, whilst perfectly understanding what is being said. The music also comes better into its own. By the way, applying this material was very easy."

Do you also want to improve the acoustics at your home?
Improve the pleasure of living by means of a agreeable acoustic climate. The following tips pages are dedicated to improving the acoustics of your home.

• Reverberation at Home
• Improve the acoustics at work
• Improving acoustics with hearing impairment

Do you need personal advice? 
Please feel free to contact us, we are happy to answer your questions as soon as possible.