Wavebar Curtain Bars by Soundguard Pump Noise To Island Neighbours

If it were not for Coates Shorco’s smart use of Soundguard’s Wavebar acoustic curtain on Sydney’s Cockatoo Island over Easter, neighbours on near Sydney Harbour foreshores might have had reason to complain about disturbance of their peace.

Source of the potential disturbance was the noise from a pair of HH80 diesel centrifugal pumps and various Grindex sludge submersibles set up to provide, throughout the Long Weekend Cockatoo Island Festival, a 6.3 litres per second sewer bypass through 750 m of submerged pipeline across the harbour to a Sewerage Pump Station in Balmain. “The pumps were set up by Barry McRae and the team from our Girraween branch and operated 24 hours a day during the festival so noise suppression was needed to avoid the possibility of disturbing nearby residents across the water,” explains Coates Shorco’s NSW pump manager, Gil Milton.

“From past dealings with Soundguard, we knew we could offer the customer a cost-effective approach.”

According to Soundguard, the first solution most people think of to muffling plant noise is to box it in. The major carpentry work and cost involved is not warranted for a temporary enclosure outdoors and most times not even for permanent enclosures indoors.

It really is as simple as hanging curtains of 4 kg/m² Wavebar from an inexpensive timber or pipework frame to surround the noise source, although for Coates Shorco, use of their SF2 temporary security fencing was the natural choice for the framework.

Wavebar boasts a Sound Transmission Class (STC) of 26 and a dB(A) reduction of 22 at 500 Hz for a quite economical solution to what could have been an expensive problem.
“Further, as the manufacturer of Wavebar, Soundguard has been able and willing to supply the material to site to our size specifications, saving even more by avoiding waste and the need for cutting and shaping,” Gil Milton explains.

“For us, it is as simple as ‘hanging the curtains’.

“And a bonus is that it’s not a temporary ‘throw-away’ solution. After use, we can roll it all up and store it ready for unfurling to provide an effective acoustic enclosure to muffle our hire-plant at any other customer site where noise must be suppressed.”

Coates Shorco is a business unit of Coates, which not only is Australia’s largest equipment hire company and celebrating its 120th year, but also is official sponsor of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.