iWindow Astounds re: Unwanted Sounds

Interpretting the acoustical testing results for Serious Energy's iWindow.

Some of our first iWindow™ retrofit projects have been city buildings in noisy, high-traffic settings. So, the immediate feedback from a number of occupants is a thankful “It’s so much quieter in here.” We wanted to quantify that, so we sent iWindow samples out for sound transmission testing. This returned some impressive reports. But, what do the numbers really mean to my – or anyone else’s – ears? It wasn’t coming through loud and clear. So I turned to our Quiet® brand team for an explanation.

Acoustician, Ben Shafer, M.S., ASA, INCE, created the graph below to illustrate the difference in transmission loss between iWindow and standard curtain wall.

The vertical axis values on this chart represent transmission loss. The higher the number, the less noise you hear through the partition. The horizontal axis is the frequency, or tone, of the noise. Low frequencies consist of noises like large vehicles or home theater subwoofers. The mid to high frequencies consist of noises like normal traffic, speech, TV, etc. In terms of transmission loss (remember, how much noise you can hear through a partition between adjacent rooms), the iWindow test results show up to 28 dB better noise reduction than standard curtain wall. So for those noises so commonly heard in commercial areas, this simple solution (iWindow) can make a big difference.

In the sound transmission tests (ASTM E90) conducted through windows on October 28, 2011, iWindow delivered 50% more noise reduction, or cut the noise by half, over standard curtain wall. The tests were conducted by Stork Twin City Testing. Stork Laboratories are accredited by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under NIST’s National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP), to conduct these testing procedures.