Salon Noise Problem

If you own a salon with a noise problem, hopefully this example will help. I know you’re in business and you probably don’t have piles of money lying around to use to take care of the acoustics in your building so please feel free to contact me with the particulars of your situation. There is always more than one way to treat a sound problem, but the tricky thing with most salon-type environments is the aesthetic that people want/need to maintain. Most salons are made of “sweepable” floors, standard drywall walls and hard ceilings – a perfect environment for an echo. A couple of these hard surfaces with dryers running, people talking, music, etc. and it can become overwhelming. There ARE products to help – from cost-effective panels made from recycled cotton all the way up to decorative, custom made fabric-wrapped fiberglass panels. Which panel or product will be the best for you will take some discussion and weighing out the advantages and disadvantages, cost vs aesthetics and location of each potential product. I hope this example below helps. Contact me if you have questions.

Ted, The working area of my salon is approx. 16’ x 40’ and has 8 ft. ceilings.  The end where there are 4 stations in a row is 20ft. wide. The noise is loudest where the styling stations are located, but also seems to echo into reception area. Sending some pics. Hope this will help.
Thanks M.

Thank you for the pictures!!! It even LOOKS like a loud room! Based on the size of the room, I would suggest starting with about 200 square feet of acoustical paneling and then stepping back to re-evaluate the situation. I came up with this number using the equation that I have had great success with – Cubic Volume x 3% = square footage of paneling to install.

16’ x 40’ x 8’ = 5,120 c/f
5,120 x .03 = 153.6 (ballpark square footage of panels to put into the room)
Note: I rounded up to 200 because of the highly reflective surfaces of the room as well as all of the right angles.

Based on the really great aesthetic of the room, I would strongly suggest the Fabric Wrapped Fiberglass panels, and probably the Guilford Anchorage or the Acousti-Suede fabric facings. I will send you a small sample of the panel with our standard facing along with the both color cards so you can SEE this stuff.

These panels are custom made so I can make whatever sizes you need and there are HUNDREDS of fabrics to choose from.

I did some quick tweaking of a few of your pictures and attached them. I don’t pretend to be any kind of an interior designer so if you have ideas for better places for panels, BY ALL MEANS, go with your preference, the pictures shown below are just ideas to get the discussion going. I would START by installing the panels on the first and second and depending on how loud the hair dryers are, do third as well. If you have the budget for it, it will be cheapest to ship ALL of the panels (including #4 and #5 at once) but I can quote them as an add-on if you want.

Without finding out the measurements of these areas, I can’t really compare them against the 200 square feet goal, so I may need a bit of help with that.

Another option that would be just as effective but a lot cheaper would be to put the Echo Eliminator panels on the ceiling. They are a much more economical product but they do not have NEARLY as finished looking of an aesthetic.

Let me know what you think of this or if you have any questions or need any additional information.

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