Werner Braun: Carpet just sounds better

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June 8, 2010

By Werner Braun The Dalton Daily Citizen Tue Jun 08, 2010, 10:41 AM EDT

In the last few weeks, I’ve spoken about a lot of the negative things we have to deal with at the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI). Unfortunately, because of the issues, we often-times have to be reactive rather than proactive. There have been many times when I’ve had conversations with people who want to debate the whole asthma/allergy issue and whether carpet is a good thing or a bad thing in the equation.

Sometimes, no matter how much data you present or how strong a case you make, some people simply do not want to hear that carpet is a good thing when it comes to indoor air quality. So instead of arguing until I’m blue in the face, I sometimes take a different approach.

Instead of trying to convince someone not to take out carpet over a negative, I simply attack from the angle that carpet is one of those products that you simply can not afford to NOT have in your facility because of all its inherent benefits.

Imagine reading a book where every fourth word is blacked out or missing completely. Imagine reading this column without every fourth word. Wouldn’t make much sense would it?

Now imagine your child at school, hearing only three out of every four words the teacher is saying. According to one study, if that teacher and that student are in a classroom without carpeting, that’s exactly what is happening.

It has been documented that excessive noise and reverberation interfere with speech intelligibility, resulting in reduced understanding and therefore reduced learning. Tests have shown that listeners with normal hearing can understand only 75 percent of the words read from a list. We’re not talking about children with hearing problems here; we’re talking about children with normal hearing.

We have long touted the acoustical benefits of carpet here at CRI. Carpets ability to absorb noise is well documented as one of its most pleasing benefits whether in a classroom setting or the home or workplace.

How many times have you seen where a teacher had to turn off the air conditioning in a room just to speak to the classroom? In a survey by the General Accounting Office, school administrators ranked poor acoustics as the most significant problem affecting the learning environment. Twenty-eight percent of responding schools, representing 11 million children, identified acoustics as being unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory.

Researchers at a conference of the Acoustical Society of America presented evidence that excessive noise levels impair a young child’s speech perception, reading and spelling ability, behavior, attention and overall academic performance. Another study done by two University of Florida colleagues found that students beyond the first and second in a typical classroom hear only 50 percent of what their teacher says.

It’s pretty simple really: if kids can’t hear well, they won’t pay attention, and they won’t learn. Figure in the fact that classroom sizes are growing and more and more kids are being taught in a second language, and you understand the scope of the problem better.

Carpet is one of the best noise-absorbing acoustical materials. Carpet absorbs 10 times more airborne noise than any other flooring materials and as much as most other types of standard acoustical materials. Carpet also will reduce noise resulting from students sliding chairs or desks on the floor. It can also keep the sounds of footsteps in a hallway from disrupting classes in session.

Carpet is not a solve-all remedy for the acoustical problems surrounding our nation’s schools, a problem that has been overlooked and misunderstood for some time. It is, however, one of the easiest things a facility manager can do to improve the learning environment.

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