Sound insulation of dwellings - Overview of classification schemes in Europe

The paper presents an overview of the main characteristics of sound classification schemes for dwellings in 8 countries in Europe. While legal sound insulation requirements for dwellings have existed for more than 50 years, schemes describing classes of acoustic quality of dwellings have been introduced during the last decade.
The status of the classification schemes in relation to the legal requirements varies. In some countries the building code and the classification standard are incoherent. In other countries they are strongly "integrated", i.e. the building
code refers to a specific class in the classification standard rather than describing the requirements. Consequently, attention is drawn to the fact that the legislative requirements are minimum requirements, and an incentive to
voluntarily specify and design for an increased acoustic quality is provided.
There are significant discrepancies between the European classification schemes, among these descriptors, number and levels of quality classes, intervals between classes. In some of the sound classification schemes, an extended frequency range down to 50 Hz is applied, which is of importance for light-weight buildings.
Although the schemes prove useful on a national basis, the diversity in Europe is an obstacle for exchange of information and experience and for further development of design tools, which is especially important to get experience with the low-frequency performance of light-weight buildings. Thus, there is a need to promote harmonisation of concepts and preferably also other characteristics of the schemes.