Meeting Room Soundproofing WTF

gherkin

In the office where I work, there's a meeting room which, like many meeting rooms, is separated from the main office area by thin walls which aren't part of the building's original structure.

The management decided that some meetings were very private and didn't want anybody eavesdropping through the thin walls, so they paid quite a bit of money having the walls and door soundproofed.

Except that, soundproofing or not, there remains a gap of several inches between the end of one of the meeting room walls, and an external wall which contains a window that was there before the meeting room was built.

So if you are in the office anywhere near the window you can still hear every single word being said in the room!

DOA

"So we're letting him go then?"

"Yup, he keeps visiting this site thedailysomething. I just saw him today posting."

"Hmm, we can't have that... make sure he's gone by Monday"

"Helen, make a note"

bjolling

@gherkin said:

Except that, soundproofing or not, there remains a gap of several inches between the end of one of the meeting room walls, and an external wall which contains a window that was there before the meeting room was built.

One thing I learned in my Acoustics class was that any fault in insulation immediately reduces a big portion of the acoustic resistance.

Besides, the only good way to soundproof a wall is to remove it and rebuild it, but

putting a dampening material between the wall and the rest of the construction otherwise the vibration will just travel around your insulation through the connecting walls, the floor and the ceiling.
make it high enough to reach the next concrete floor. You need to soundproof the space ABOVE the lowered ceiling as well.
put a dampening material between the wall boards and the internal construction elements of the wall (aluminum studs). And don't use too many screws - they also transmit vibrations.

So if a decent soundproofing needs the wall rebuilt, why didn't they just move it so I didn't intersect a window?

I think we all know the anwer...

spxza

I saw a similar thing at some clients, and also a lot of confidentiality required. Only, the soundproofing somehow stopped any wifi signals from going in and out that boardroom. Their bosses didn't want to pay for any network infrastructure to be put inside it, so the large doors were left constantly open to get a signal.