Classroom mock-up meeting Standard S12.60

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) developed a standard entitled Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools (ASA/ANSI S12.60-2010) that provides a minimum set of requirements to help school planners and designers “provide good acoustical characteristics for classrooms and other learning spaces in which speech communication is an important part of the learning process.” In this revision, several details were revised for incorporation into building codes. Despite the obvious benefits of quieter classrooms, incorporating the standard into building codes met with resistance. A common perception was that in order to meet the standard’s requirements, specialized HVAC equipment and installation methods would be necessary, resulting in an installed cost beyond what most schools could afford. Acoustical prediction tools indicated that the requirements could be met using standard HVAC equipment and installation methods. To verify the predictions, a simulated classroom was built and several common types of equipment including a single-zone air handling unit, a high-efficiency water-source heat pump, and a packaged rooftop unit were tested. The selected products were standard catalog offerings, without any special attenuation features, that were operated at typical airflow and static pressures. This paper describes those tests, the conclusion, and the resulting recommendations.