Whisperwave™ Panels at Christ Church of Arlington
Acoustical Solutions, Inc. recently worked with a church in Virginia to solve the church's echo and reverberation problem, which was making fellowship time almost unbearable for many members and visitors.
The noise reduction solution was to install hanging curved acoustic baffles, which are a lively alternative to acoustical wall panels.
Application Introduction
Fellowship is an extremely important concept and practice in churches around the world.
Essentially, fellowship is members of a congregation gathering, communicating, socializing and discussing everything from church business and faith to family matters and even the big Sunday night game.
It was in trying to make this experience as satisfying as possible for its members and visitors that Christ Church of Arlington contacted Acoustical Solutions.
"The problem was too much noise when the room was occupied - which is often!" said Humphrey Mar, a deacon and member of the church's building committee. "People had to raise their voices just to talk to the person right in front of them, and then that only exacerbated the problem."
Christ Church of Arlington was experiencing high levels of reverberation due to hard, flat, reflective surfaces in its fellowship hall. This resulted in low speech intelligibility, which made some members rethink participation.
"It was so bad that some of our elderly members simply gave up on ‘fellowship time' because they couldn't socialize," Humphrey explained.
Treatment Provided
To treat the space, Whisperwave™ cloud mount panels were hung from the ceiling. The hanging panels were installed in a way that was not only effective and aesthetically pleasing in the end, but also easy to mount for the do-it-yourselfers.
"The installation wasn't hard for us amateur volunteers, and at least the way we installed it, it was extremely forgiving in terms of not having to line up everything," Humphrey said.
Whisperwave™ cloud mount panels are curved acoustic products that absorb sound waves. They are a very popular stylized alternative to more traditional acoustical panels, which are often flat.
In addition to being extremely effective at absorbing sound (NRC Rating: .85 - .95), the entire Whisperwave™ line is made from Class 1 fire-rated foam.
Results
After the project's completion, Christ Church of Arlington had a space that both sounded better and looked better than it did before.
"The net effect has been a dramatic improvement, especially directly beneath the clouds," Humphrey said.
It looks and sounds like folks just might be sticking around a little longer for ‘fellowship time' now that they can understand each other.
For more information on this application, contact Don Strahle.
