Noise in the office: Part I — Guidelines for the practitioner

Abstract

This chapter presents several guidelines for identifying the principal noise sources in offices and outlines the possible ways of dealing with them to avoid these undesirable effects. Four types of noise sources have been judged to be critical in offices. These sources include external sources (e.g. traffic noise), fixed installations, building noise (e.g. ventilation noise), office machines (e.g. copying machines and printers), and office activities. The first step in an analysis of a noise problem in an office is to identify the critical noise sources. The second step is to determine what makes the noise annoying. Different technical methods may be necessary to use in this analysis. The disturbance from noise of speech communication is another main reason for noise annoyance. In the open-plan office the level of irrelevant speech may be reduced in two ways. First, the distance between the speaker and the receiver may be increased, that is, the distance between those workers who seldom need to communicate should be maximized and that between those needing to communicate should be reduced to avoid the need for raising the voice. Secondly, the propagation of speech beyond the intended listeners should be minimized.