I need to divide up an office space with room dividers. I could hang them from the ceiling or I could stand them on the floor. Sound deadening will be part of the desired outcome. Each of three sections of divider will include a 90 degree corner, so the turn alone could go a ways toward standing the things up if that the way I go.
I built a room divider years ago with what amounted to sculpted berber carpet glued to plywood. I could go somewhere in that direction again, or not.
I’ll appreciate any suggestions of materials or techniques that you folks have found to be useful.
The room I’ll be dividing has 10′-8″ ceilings with 80+ year old original pressed tin in pretty good condition. Someone once hung a grid ceiling under this old beauty and there are still screwed-in hanger tabs all over the ceiling. Due, I’m guessing, to the height of the ceiling and the fact that everything was painted off-white, those tabs are hardly noticable.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Joe
Replies
You ever work with Twin-wall?
Light weight.....allows light to pass through....may help with sound absorbtion.
I used it for a similar application not too long ago. Check it out here:
http://www.tapplastics.com/info/twinsheet.php
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Thanks, JD! I bookmarked it and will check it out. Sounds like an interesting material.What did you use it for?Our ancestors killed mastadons with pointy sticks!
I used it to build dividing walls for a kitchen showroom. It wasn't used for the display walls....just to partition off various areas.....reception area, sales clerks...that sorta thing.
Framed the walls with 2 x 4s that had been painted matte black and fastened the covering with SS panhead screws. Very "industrial" looking.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Acoustic experts will tell you that measurements show that most sound transmission around office areas is sound reflected off the ceiling. This is true with acoustic ceilings, so would be even more so with tin ceilings. Therefore, your partitions should go up quite close to the ceiling.
As for materials, one that is not particularly expensive is fabric covered Homasote called Design Wall. I find it attractive, too, and I've had compliements on it in offices where I've used it. There are many other materials too, of course.
Generally in an office it is so quiet that you don't really need high end sound deadening construction.
http://www.homasote.com/CATALOG/2006/Homaoste%202006%20Interior%20Panels.pdf
http://www.quietsolution.com/Homasote_vs_QuietRock_scn.pdf
Looks interesting. Thanks, I'll be reading up on it.Our ancestors killed mastadons with pointy sticks!
Having worked in offices for years, they can get very noisy: phones ringing, people talking, keyboards tapping, radios, fax machines, etc... Traditional office "dividers", like the kind you get at Staples or Office Max, aren't high enough to effectively block sound, and people can look over the top and down onto you to see what you are doing. Very disconcerting.
Just some things to consider as you build. Good luck!
The Twinwall product would make a sturdy dividing wall but it's hard surface would tend to amplify/reflect any noise. Coupled with the tin ceiling I would expect a very distracting workplace.
Do you plan to install a premade product or are you looking for materials to fabricate your own version of dividing walls? Do you have design parameters to follow or do you need just basic cubicles? Do the dividers need to be tall enough to provide certain privacy from tall co-workers or are they just to define a work area?
What is the light source for the room? Do you expect to continue to use existing lighting? Is it generally ceiling mounted and designed to uniformly cover the existing open office space? Will tall cubicle walls create annoying shadows and uneven lighting conditions for the type of work performed? Will ceiling mounted dividers kill the lighting coverage?
Do the dividers need to be movable in the future?
Do you have adequate electrical outlets, phone and computer junctions in each planned section? Do you expect to have what's needed concealed within these panels to keep extensions cords, etc. from being a problem?
Would fabric baffles, hung from the existing, or added, ceiling clips, cut down on the reflected noise and still allow adequate lighting to the divided room. Would site built wall panels, covered with, say, sheet batting material and then a stretched fabric serve the purpose?
Great questions, Ralph.I plan to build the dividers. Everything about them is up to me. They are for my wife's office (used to be my office, but I hardly spend time there now).The dividers are primarily to delineate work space. Our associates, the people who will be using the spaces, are often not there at the same time, but sometimes they are.The room is very bright. The south wall is almost entirely window. Lighting is currently from the ceiling and more will be added. Wiring will be redone to supply each space. Three of the cubicles will be enclosed by two walls and two dividers. One cubicle will have only one wall with three dividers.Thanks for your input!Our ancestors killed mastadons with pointy sticks!
Yes, I've a suggestion
Yes, I've a suggestio https://www.soundproofroomdividers.com/product/acoustic-room-dividers/. It provides high levels of noise reduction as well as design flexibility. You simply pull the interlocking panel together to separate the space and push it back when the area needs to be opened.
Note: While this might be a spam effort I'm going to let it sit here as the product is interesting. However, I found no US based distributor of this Chinese company listed on the site.