Massive or lightweight? Sound insulation of Austrian multistory apartment buildings since 2000

During the past centuries, Austria was a country of massive multistory apartment houses. Since the last decade of the last century, technical and legal developments led to experimental multistory buildings with lightweight construction as timber frame or cross laminated timber construction. During the following years, the proportion of lightweight constructions increased slightly. In Styria, a federal land in the south of Austria, it is usual to perform sample performance measurements also of the quality of subsidized apartment buildings upon competition. This paper shows some results of such quality measurements of airborne and impact sound insulation during the past two decades and discusses the performance of different constructions. Moreover, some results of “mikrozensus” surveys about noise pollution of the federal institution “Statistik Austria” are presented. The question arises, if the used descriptors as, e.g., the weighted sound reduction index Rw are still sufficient meaningful in every case or if there should be some additional information to avoid specific problematic construction solutions. Another way would be to provide rules for robust in detail. Some special cases and construction influences are shown exemplarily. For future development, it would be of interest to provide more information about sensitivity of construction measures in order to enhance the future sound insulation performance not only as a number but in reality.During the past centuries, Austria was a country of massive multistory apartment houses. Since the last decade of the last century, technical and legal developments led to experimental multistory buildings with lightweight construction as timber frame or cross laminated timber construction. During the following years, the proportion of lightweight constructions increased slightly. In Styria, a federal land in the south of Austria, it is usual to perform sample performance measurements also of the quality of subsidized apartment buildings upon competition. This paper shows some results of such quality measurements of airborne and impact sound insulation during the past two decades and discusses the performance of different constructions. Moreover, some results of “mikrozensus” surveys about noise pollution of the federal institution “Statistik Austria” are presented. The question arises, if the used descriptors as, e.g., the weighted sound reduction index Rw are still sufficient meaningful in every case or...