Industrial Q&A
How do I know what to do?
Let's start with the fact that you are here on this page. This tell us you're serious about your sound control project and are a few short steps away from defining your answer, gathering your quote and triggering a potential purchase order for material. This full Basics section is here for you to do your homework if you want to. Otherwise, click to the Applications Guide and use the drop down menus to navigate to your treatment. From that point, you will be introduced to the corresponding set of product options listed in our Product Bin that will carry you through to the appropriate product. At that point, a simple phone to call to our help desk can confirm your treatment, answer questions, or take your order, or you can order online direct.
How do I enclose my noise source?
Enclosures can be rugged industrial grade steel enclosures, or simple frames built around your sound source used to suspend our sound control blankets. Both will trigger good results, the blanket option will be less expensive and more user friendly. The steel option will be more permanent, rugged and expensive, but trigger your strongest results. For those that have a box or shroud currently built around a noise source, just line with the FBF1M panels featured in our Product Guide.
What if my noise source is unencloseable?
The majority of industrial sound sources are not encloseable. In these cases, we do a step-down analysis of your treatment to determine if we can build partial enclosures, or if the area of your plant floor can be barricaded off acoustically from the rest of your facility. If not, then tackle the background noise levels by targeting the path the sound is taking and lower your decibel level exposure by absorbing the unwanted reverberations in the plant. Remember that "source" driven treatments will always outperform "path" driven treatments.
Do my employees need to wear hearing protection?
OSHA requires hearing protection for any employee exposed to a time weight dB reading of 85 or greater over an 8 hour work day. If your dB readings are stronger than that, or you can't rely on their wearing the hearing protection, consider our treatments as your solution.
How do I measure my decibel level?
Buy a hand held dosimeter. We don't sell them, but you can find them online. Figure $1200 for an average unit cost. Before you do, though, remember we've handled thousands of clients and can provide good estimates as to what needs to be done with or without the initial dB readings. You can also hire an acoustical consultant to come onsite and generate a sound survey for you. This could prove expensive, but valuable if you are facing litigation or OSHA fines.
How do I control impact noise?
Enclosures will help, but you will also want to explore the machine mounts featured here on our site. By decoupling vertical vibrations down into your floor, you can help remove the structural connections that would otherwise deliver the impact into your floor surface and carry unwanted noise throughout your factory.
How do I know which machine mount is best for my application?
To ensure proper machinery installation, we recommend you contact our engineering staff at 1-800-600-6715 or submit a Machine Analysis Worksheet to us via fax to 1-517-764-5607. Experience has shown that no one product or system is "best" for all applications under all conditions. Start by visiting the Product Bins inside our Vibration Isolation section of our Industrial Applications Guide. Then make a call into our office where our engineering staff stands by ready to assist in the design and development of your complete machinery installation system.
How do I know how much material I will need?
Our Applications Guide does a good job of stepping you down through the treatment options, starting with the "path" driven treatments and ending with the "source" driven treatments. Your strategy relies on the degree of sound reduction you are seeking, how encloseable your noise source is, your budget constraints, and what is deemed practical. All of this can be addressed with a brief phone call to our help desk at 1-800-638-9355. From there we can address quantities needed to trigger the results you seek. You can also complete a Room Analysis Worksheet and fax it to your office at 1-763-694-8909.
Does foam block noise?
No. Open cell foam absorbs sound reflections off surrounding walls, ceilings or floor mounted stands on your factory floor. By controlling echo, you control background noise and lower dB exposure levels. If you are enclosing a noise source or building a wall to barricade noise, foam itself will not work. Noise will bleed through it like water seeps through a sponge. For barrier and enclosure treatments, opt instead for the quilted blankets or composite FBF1M panels featured in our Product Guide.
How much will my treatment cost?
Most sound control products range in price from $2 to $14 per square foot. The cost associated with your project will clearly depend on the strategy you implement, the size of your facility, the strength of your noise source, and so on. There is no way to predict in advance what your treatment will go for, but a simple call to our help desk can quickly approximate your cost.
Are there minimum order requirements?
No. But remember that enclosure treatments should cover as much of the sound source as possible, barrier sound walls should extend floor to ceiling, wall to wall, in order to minimize bleed, and you do not want to the room for absorption by minimizing baffle or wall panel treatments. You must be aggressive with your quantities in order to trigger the results you will expect. For estimates on quantities and quotes, call our help desk at 1-800-600-6715 or fax a Room Analysis Worksheet to 1-763-694-8909.
How do I contain structure borne vibrations?
Place machine mounts under the legs of your machinery. They are designed to decouple the vibrations down into your floor and minimize structural contact with the rest of your facility. This treatment helps to isolate the noise to the machine, but you should also consider blanket enclosures to help cordon off the airborne noise.
How do I know if my noise is structure borne or air borne?
Factory noise is almost always a combination of the two. As we discuss in our Academy and the Industrial section of our Applications Guide, your goal should be to first isolate your noise as best you can, and then absorb either what is being isolated, or what is deemed unencloseable. While enclosure, barrier and absorption treatments work well to combat airborne noise, machine mounts and Inertia Block serve to sever structure borne vibrations between machine and factory floor. Remember that noise travels faster through concrete than it does through air. Do not ignore your the legs of your machinery and the impact that vibrations have on controlling your dB levels.
How does foam lower decibel level exposure?
Foam absorbs sound reflections off surrounding walls and ceilings. This clears out the background noise in the room, and although the original sound source remains just as loud, the room becomes less loud.
How do I know if the treatment will work?
On one hand, this is a step of blind faith for you. On the other, the science behind sound control is undeniable, measurable, and proven over time to produce results. Start with the knowledge that NetWell has been doing this since 1990, servicing thousands of clients throughout the world who have achieved superior results. The vast product mix we offer is unique, designed to help package the best solution possible for your application. The question isn't really whether the treatment will work, it's more of a question of degree. We won't cure anything, we are simply after a better controlled environment and are confident we can deliver that. If you're at 130 decibels with an uncloseable sound source, we'll tell you right upfront that our products won't bring you to 85 dBa. But if you're at 92 and need to drop under 85, we can bring you there. And if you're at 110 with an encloseable noise source, we can also bring you there. Your best bet is to call our help desk at 1-800-638-9355 and ask for help!
Do you guarantee results?
No. The reason has nothing to do with the confidence we pour into our product mix, it has everything to do with the room or sound source being treated. Remember, we stand behind the independent lab test results, but those are created in a lab, not in a field application. Once our treatments move onto your site, we lose control over a variety of issues that could serve to deteriorate our results. Again, we can tell you without reservation that the treatments will help control your noise, but not cure it. The degree of result is the question, and we cannot put our name on the line with little control over the environment its being placed into. Issues such as leakage, vibration, frequency pitch of the noise, accuracy of any dB readings, and installation of our material can all combine to decay results.
Are sound panels class A fire rated?
Fiberglass based products are typically fire rated, as are melamine foam products. Polyurethane products are not. They are UL94 HF-1 approved, which is a fire test for being self-extinguishing. But this fire retardant issue does not equate to class A fire rating. For more information, see the Fire chapter of this Basics section.
How thick should my panels be?
Thicker panels are going to trigger better results for low bass tones or impact sounds. If your working with foam panels, the 3" thick is the standard for general plant noise. If you are building an anechoic chamber or dynamometer room, you would want the 10" thick MAX Soundblocks. Our most popular panel is the 3" thick Pyramid.
Do I need to cover 100% of my surface?
For barrier treatments designed to block noise from bleeding, yes. For absorption treatments designed to lower reverberations in the room, no. Call our help desk at 1-800-638-9355 or fax a completed Room Analysis Worksheet to 1-763-694-8909 and we can project the coverage you would need for an absorption treatment.
Are sound panels waterproof?
Foam panels can be sprayed with tuftane skin to make them spongeable and moisture resistant. Fiberglass panels can be wrapped in waterproof or water resistant skins, yes.
Do you have clean room panels?
Our USDA panels are approved for use in kitchens, food processing plants, pharmaceutical plants, and so on. These are fiberglass based panels wrapped and heat sealed in a PVF skin. They can be layed into a ceiling tile grid system as a ceiling tile, grommeted in the corners for suspension as a vertical baffle, or cut into larger panel sizes for clipping to your wall surface.
How do I proceed from here?
If you're comfortable with your level of understanding about sound control, click through to the Applications Guide and target your specific treatment. If you can't find yours pre-listed, call our help desk at 1-800-638-9355. The treatments outlined will link to a Product Bin filled with products for your consideration. These will then take you into our Product Guide for more detail, and allow you to call or fax us for help, order online, or even connect to the Forum and discuss your treatment with others before pursuing. Good luck!
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