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Noise and your wellbeing

Traffic noise, mobile phones, loud music and the neighbour’s lawn mower. You are constantly affected by noise. Besides affecting your hearing, the noise can also affect you health and wellbeing.  

Many different types of noise can raise your body’s stress levels, releasing a number of different stress hormones, including adrenaline and norepinephrine. As the amount of stress hormones in the body increases, the heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar increase, as does the blood supply to the muscles.

Excessive levels of stress hormones in the body are harmful, and if the noise effect is prolonged or repeated day after day, it can end up seriously affecting health and wellbeing of the occupants.

Acoustic windows

Traffic noise is not just nuisance, it also affects our health and wellbeing. If you want to dampen the noise in your home, a good place to start is with the windows.

Noise reducing performance of acoustic windows can be achieved by a variety of combinations of glass thicknesses, interlayers with laminated glass, distances between panes and the gases used within the glazing cavity.

These all influence the type of opening functions which can accommodate the glazed units and Idealcombi have the experience and expertise to guide you through the various options.

For any questions or more information about acoustic glazing, please contact our UK team.

Triple glazing for noise reduction

Standard triple glazed windows are often mistaken for being the better choice for noise reduction. Adding an extra pane of glass does not necessarily mean better reduction in noise levels. The greatest noise reduction in windows comes by the mix of spacing between the layers of glass and the thicknesses and types of glass.

A standard Futura+ window with a triple glazed unit(6/4/4mm) might lower noises by about 36dB while an acoustically focused triple glazed unit will achieve approximately 43dB.
A standard Futura+ window with a double glazed unit(6/4mm) might lower the noise level by 35dB with an acoustically focused double glazed unit could get you a noise reduction of about 44dB. (All four examples are for standard Futura+ windows with the mentioned glazing/acoustic glazing)

You cannot say triple glazing provide better acoustic performance than double glazing!

If you really want to make an impact, you need to differentiate the thicknesses of the panes and the spacing between them.

Our acoustic window(shown below), with an additional internal sash, has significantly better acoustic performance due to the wider spacing and variety of glass used. The acoustic window achieves around 49dB sound reduction, which will make a great difference to the perceived levels of noise.

Idealcombi Futura+ acoustic window with additional internal sash for maximum noise reduction

Limitations for acoustic windows

Achieving maximum acoustic performance could mean compromising on size and/or opening function of your windows, due to the weight on the hinges to certain opening types.

There are many options when it comes to noise reducing acoustic windows and we are here to help you get the best result. Please contact our UK team for any questions or for more information .

Facts about noise reduction

Glass of different thickness increases the noise reduction
Greater distance between panes improves noise reduction

Examples of noise levels:

Whispering:  30 dB
Talking:  40-60 dB
Hoovering:  65-75 dB
A car:  70-80 dB
A lorry:  80-90 dB
A pavement breaker:  90-110 dB
A jet engine:  110-130 dB

Changes in db

For every 10dB you reduce the noise level, it will be perceived at half the volume.

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