Improved Room Acoustics for Sheet-Piling Ceilings

Living room with too much reverberation
In this showcase we explain how we, together with a customer, improved the acoustics of their living room. Because of the smooth concrete floor and a sheet-piling profile ceiling the room had far to much echo and reverberation. We came up with a unique and affordable solution to improve the acoustics in the living room, actually in the whole home.

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.

Bad acoustics because of a steel sheet-piling ceiling
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 causes lots of echo and 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 a 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: customised black Akotherm SF acoustic panels
We customised 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 want to improve the acoustics in 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.