FAQ

Internationally, technical laws for passive acoustical requirements of buildings are represented by UNI EN ISO 16283 standard ( acoustics- measurements of building acoustic isolation and parts of building) and, in particular, by:
– UNI EN ISO 16283 – 1: acoustical isolation by air
– UNI EN ISO 16283 – 2: noise isolation by tapping
– UNI EN ISO 16283 – 3: acoustical isolation of facade

An examination of passive acoustical requirements consists on determining if a new building (or a restructured one) respects or not limits values of noise isolation defined in implementation decree DPCM 5-12-1997 on “Determination of passive acoustical requirements of buildings” and successive DM 11/01/2017 on environmental minimum requirements for competitive public tender and concerns “acoustic comfort”. This law has been released to guarantee a life environment with a low noise level and the absence of annoyance towards neighboring life environment to avoid legal disputes.
This decree defines noise values (minimum or maximum) may be found inside of buildings regarding:
– Noise isolation among different property units
– External noise isolation
– Tapping noise isolation
– Noise isolation of installation with continuous and discontinuous operation

Law 447 of 1995 establishes that acoustical pollution is “the introduction of noise in a living space or external space that provoke sleep and human activities bothers, danger to human health, ecosystem degeneration, of material goods, monuments, living and working environment and interferes with legitimate use of spaces”.

It is demonstrated that these unwanted and harmful noises are mainly caused by:
Sources:
– Road, rail and aerial traffic
– Productive activities and public exercises
– Citizens life routine

Receiving:
– Erroneous dislocation, shape and position of buildings
– Materials and installations without adequate acoustical features
– Weakness of acoustical isolation toward the outside and between internal subdivisions.

Building acoustic works with the main purpose of enhancing and optimizing quality and comfort of living spaces, inside and outside, used by persons and communities.
Both for new buildings and for restructuring existent buildings, planning and architectural laws should be applied to guarantee an appropriate acoustical isolation, for internal noise sources (ex.: installations, services, other lodgers…) and external sources (ex.: traffic and surrounding noise).

Building acoustics regards:
– Acoustical isolation by air through spaces: evaluation of the isolation of two spaces adjacent and overlapping, belonging to different residential units.
– Acoustical isolation by air of facades: evaluation of isolation of facades, compared to external noise.
– Noise isolation by tapping: evaluation of acoustic isolation by tapping noise with standard source.

Architectural acoustics regards concert rooms, theaters, cinemas, studios of cinematography radio and television shoots. It consists in the study of volumetric and constructive characteristics of a room, constructive materials and architectural shapes, to obtain a great audition in every spot of the room. In this way the listening is direct and the reproduction more pleasant, avoiding focal sound concentration and auditory shadows.

To define acoustic quality of a space exists reverberation time, that indicates time of decay in seconds; this is necessary, in a spot of inside space, to reduce sound level of a certain unit, compared with the one you have in the moment in which auditory source stops.

In July 2010 it has been released technical law UNI 11367, that defines a procedure to acoustically classify building units, according to phonometric measurements performed at the end of work. Every apartment is characterized by 5 acoustical classes, one for every kind of noise (airplane, tapping, facades isolation noises and implants that work in continuous and discontinuous way). From the 5 classes it is possible to extract just one global acoustic class.

Legge Quadro on acoustical pollution, “Law 26 of October 1995”, n. 447, establishes fundamental principles on protection of external environment and living environment from acoustical pollution, according to article 177 of Italian Constitution. This law has been established with a series of decrees that discipline the whole acoustical area in detail.