Annona Development - St Paul's refurb apartment project

The Challenge
With acoustics provision inevitably high on any developer’s agenda since the introduction of Part E, Annona faced additional considerations in undertaking the refurbishment of St Paul’s Church, Wigan. It required a cost effective material that would not waste valuable conversion space, while allowing any type of floor finish to be used.

With plans to create 19 high quality apartments within the former church, tackling the issue of impact sound was a priority. Jamie Preston, construction director for Annona Development, explains: “Since the introduction of Part E regulations, we have to be thinking about how to make sure the project is up to standard right from the start.

“This is true of all refurb developments, but even more so with apartments. More often than not, we completely change the inner structure of a building, which means we must carefully consider the implications for the acoustics.”

The Solution
Having previously undertaken a refurbishment project to convert a Victorian property into separate living spaces, Annona Development was familiar with seeking out expert acoustic advice. It turned to CMS Acoustic Solutions to specify the most suitable material to attenuate impact sound.

For St Paul’s Church, CMS Acoustics specified a core product in the high performance Regupol range - 4515 Multi – a tough and durable acoustic underlay material. Manufactured from a blend of recycled materials, Regupol 4515 Multi utilises an environmentally friendly solution to deliver a high quality overscreed material that attenuates impact sound at source, and can be bonded to all types of base floors.

A crucial factor in the specification of Regupol 4515 Multi was its suitability for use with all types of floor finish, including ceramic tiles, vinyl, wood, laminates, carpet and linoleum.

Preston comments: “The fact that we could use any floor finish, as well as save space and meet our expected acoustic budget on the project, demonstrated that we had found a flexible product that can be easily applied across various refurb developments.”

An additional consideration in the specification of Regupol 4515 Multi was its shallow depth: at 4.5mm, the material helps to reduce construction heights. This was key for Annona as the refurbishment of St Paul’s included reworking two floors and introducing a new third floor. Finally, its easy lay properties were crucial in assisting Annona to meet development timescales. Preston continues: “When you’re up against it with time, quality can’t be compromised, especially when the sound levels will be vigorously tested. But equally, losing time on lengthy acoustic installations is not an option either. This wasn’t an issue with Regupol because we had the best of both worlds – high quality and efficient installation.”

Results
Onsite testing at St Paul’s proved to Preston that quality had not been compromised in favour of efficient installation. He explains: “We were confident that the project would pass onsite testing, because of our experience with Regupol on previous developments. What we didn’t expect was for it to fly past minimum standard, exceeding the regulations by an average of 8dB in all rooms. It was an excellent result.”

The sale of the apartments has now been confirmed, with one of the major selling points being that they had the option for customising floor finishes to their own specifications. Preston concludes: “Our buyers wanted to be able to customise the individual units with their own floor finishes. The fact that they weren’t restricted in any aspect of the material they wanted to use was a real plus.”

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