Acoustic Doors

In the age of open floor plans and chiming cell phones, silence is golden. That may explain the growing demand for sound resistant doors. With this increase, there have been two issues that are coming up more often.

  • Beware of “more is better”.    The higher the sound resistance, the more expensive the door. An STC rating in the 40s is adequate for most situations because loud speech is barely audible. For more demanding music-related or military applications, we suggest working with an acoustic consultant.
  • It takes more than a door.   The walls and ceiling should have noise-resistant properties too. There was an instance where an STC door was installed into an existing opening, and the occupants complained that it didn’t help at all. After asking a few questions, we learned that the room had a drop ceiling and drywall walls that sound could easily pass through. Of course the doors didn’t solve the problem!

 

Door Selector Tool

Now it’s easier than ever to determine the appropriate door for an opening. Just answer a few basic questions about the opening in our free Door Selector to see the most commonly specified designs.

Our hope is that this tool will save you time. Rather than having to research the common door constructions for each opening in a building, just bookmark this tool and reference it when you want to confirm what’s commonly specified.

The Risks of Grouting Frames

When should frames be grouted? Ask three people and you’ll probably get three different answers.

In fact, the most common word entered in the search bar on the Steel Door Institute website is “grout”. It’s understandable. There are a lot of conflicting opinions on the topic.

We would like to take this opportunity to share with you our stance on when it is and isn’t okay to grout frames.