Contents

5.0 Introduction
5.1 Resisting sound transmission to dwellings

5.0 Introduction
5.0.1 Background

5.0.1 Background

There are currently no Building Standards to protect the occupants or users of a non-domestic building from noise but the need may arise for such standards at a later date.

Standard 5.1 is included here because there are situations in which it is necessary for a non-domestic building to have a separating wall or separating floor that resists the transmission of sound.

standard 5.1
mandatory

Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that each wall and floor separating one dwelling from another, or one dwelling from another part of the building, or one dwelling from a building other than a dwelling, ensures that noise perceived by the occupants of each dwelling is kept down to a level that will not threaten their health or inconvenience them in the course of sleep, rest, recreation, study or other domestic activities.

Limitation

This standard does not apply to:

1. fully detached houses;
2. roofs or walkways with access solely for maintenance or for the use of residents of the dwelling below.

5.1.1 Application of requirements

Standard 5.1 is included here because there are situations in which it is necessary for a non-domestic building to have a separating wall or separating floor that resists the transmission of sound. This only applies where the separation relates to a dwelling.

In most cases this will be very obvious as a dwelling will be created at the same time as the non-domestic building and the guidance in ‘Domestic buildings – Section 5: Noise’ will be followed as a matter of course.

Occasionally the need for sound-resisting construction may be less obvious. An example of this would be where a new shop is built onto the side of an existing domestic building and the existing external wall to the domestic building becomes a separating wall. This new separating wall would need to be resistant to the transmission of sound. Note that for the purposes of this example, it is assumed that there is a legal right to utilise this existing wall. In such situations and similar situations the guidance in ‘Domestic buildings – Section 5: Noise’ should be used.

This Standard applies to new dwellings. Also, in the case of conversions, as defined by Regulation 3, the building as converted must meet the requirements of this standard (Regulation 12, Schedule 6).