Resistance To The Passage Of Sound (Part E) FAQ

I am disturbed by noise from neighbours coming through the separating wall or floor. Can I get help through the Building Regulations?

The Building Regulations apply to new building work, and Building Control can only take enforcement action against the builder within six months of completion of the work. The Regulations are not retrospective, and so do not apply to existing buildings.

Do the requirements of Part E apply to Care Homes?

Part E sets standards for the sound insulation between dwellings. In the 2003 revision, the regulation was extended to cover hostel types of accommodation such as student halls of residence. We called these types of accommodation Rooms for Residential Purposes, and the definition could be taken to include hospital wards where a high standard of sound insulation could conflict with operational requirements. For this reason we made a specific exclusion for "...a room in a hospital, or other similar establishment, used for patient accommodation...".

The question is whether a Care Home can be considered as an "other similar establishment" “used for patient accommodation” for the purposes of this exclusion. 

This is a matter for the building control body to decide, but they should take account of the following:

One of the aims of the 2003 revision of Part E was to ensure that people have a reasonable degree of acoustic privacy in their homes, including rooms for residential purposes. Patients in hospital can be considered as a special case, because the need for the medical staff to hear sounds of distress and to have rapid access to the patients, is likely to be more important than the patient's need for privacy.

Residents in Care Homes may be considered to be in the same category as hospital patients if they are patients receiving a high level of care and are unable to live independent lives.

Now that BS 1243: 1978 Metal ties for cavity wall construction, has been withdrawn by BSI how can type A and B wall ties, as described in Paragraphs 2.19 and 2.20 of Approved Document E (2003), be identified?

BS 1243 described butterfly, double-triangle and vertical-twist wall ties. Approved Document E recognised the first two as meeting the specification for type A and B respectively.  As well as recognising butterfly and double-triangle types, the Approved Document also gives performance standards, in terms of dynamic stiffness, for types A and B (paragraphs 2.21-2.24). Therefore, ties may still be selected by reference to the dynamic stiffness declared by the manufacturer. BS EN 845-1:2003 Specification for ancillary components - Part 1 Ties, tension straps, hangers and brackets, classifies butterfly ties as Type 4. Other Type 4 ties may not satisfy the specification for dynamic stiffness for type A ties. Ties should also satisfy the Requirements of Part A (2004).

Must organisations that carry out pre-completion testing be either UKAS accredited or ANC Registered?

The guidance in Approved Document E (2003) is that organisations carrying out pre-completion testing should "preferably have UKAS accreditation (or a European equivalent) for field measurements". The 2004 amendment adds that "The ODPM also regards members of the ANC Registration Scheme as suitably qualified to carry out pre-completion testing".

When pre-completion testing was introduced in 2003 there were not enough UKAS/ANC test organisations to undertake the work. There are now over 50 UKAS/ANC organisations, and ODPM recommend that UKAS/ANC organisations should be used unless no such organisation is available when required. Builders who employ test organisations should be made aware of this at an early stage.

Although organisations that are not UKAS accredited or ANC registered may work to the same standards as the other organisations, their operation has not been subjected to a check by a third party.

To satisfy Requirement E3 (Reverberation in the common internal parts of buildings containing flats or rooms for residential purposes), is it necessary to treat all the common parts?

The purpose of this Requirement is to protect residents from noise produced in reverberant common areas. The Requirement only applies to "corridors, stairwells, hallways, and entrance halls which give access to the flat or room for residential purposes". To comply with this, it is recommended that absorbent treatment should normally be applied only to common areas onto which dwellings open directly.
Where separating walls, without doors or windows, are adjacent to common areas it would not normally be necessary to treat the common areas, assuming normal usage. Other situations are dealt with in paragraph 0.8 of Approved Document E (2003).