LIVE BETTER
WHETHER IT’S CLEVER INSULATION OR MUTED APPLIANCES, REDUCING NOISE AT HOME WILL REAP BENEFITS
Listen, do you hear that? If you’re taking a quiet moment out to sit down to read a magazine, then hopefully not. Realistically, a completely silent home is somewhat of a rarity, and one of those things that you never have exactly when you need it.
Depending on where you live, how much building work your neighbours are currently undertaking and whether it’s lawnmowing season, there’s a barrage of sound beyond your four walls – and beyond your control – determined to distract you from the task at hand. Sound is the poor relation in the conversation we’ve started about wellness in our homes – falling by the wayside for the more Instagrammable plant rooms and garden yoga studios. But can you say you’ve never been negatively impacted by noise in your home before?
It’s something that deserves our attention – after all, wellbeing is a multisensory affair. ‘Because sound is invisible it is often overlooked,’ explains Poppy Szkiler, co-founder of Quiet Mark, a scheme that awards certification to products that are both quiet and help improve a building ’s ‘acoustic comfort’. ‘Yet, the fundamental impact noise has on all the physical rhythms of our bodies, our hormones, heart rate and brain waves, is so profound and inherent to our wellbeing, it should also be central to the design process of the buildings we live in.’
Addressing your home’s relationship with noise is a game of two halves – it begins with the fabric of the building itself and ends with what we put in that building. There are parallels between the quest for a quieter home and a more thermally-efficient one. Though something like a Passivhaus, a high-spec eco build, focuses on strict guidelines for airtightness and a home’s heating requirements, these properties also have a better acoustic barrier than your everyday house almost by accident. ‘By default, the detailing of the thick walls and triple glazing means you’ve got a very quiet internal environment,’ explains Mike Jacobs, co-founder of wellness architecture practice Kiss House. ‘Yet, there’s no consideration beyond that of the acoustic separation between rooms or even floors of the building – and this is what we think is really important in making us as humans feel at ease in our homes.’
Using acoustic insulation between walls, floor joists and on the ceiling isn’t something that’s covered by standards such as building regulations, but can have such an effect on the levels of comfort you feel in your home. Even something as simple as watching a film late at night or not having to creep up to bed in case you disturb the rest of the house is a weight lifted thanks to soundproofing measures, making your house a mo
