Carpet Improves Acoustics, Absorbs Background Noise

Werner Braun: Carpet just sounds better! How Carpet Improves Acoustics

Werner Braun’s series of articles for the Dalton Daily Citizen-News continues. His latest article titled "Carpet helps absorb background noise" addresses how carpet makes it easier to hear things indoors and begins by asking, “Imagine reading this column where every fourth word is blacked out or missing completely. Imagine reading without every fourth word. Wouldn’t make much sense would it?”

The article then quotes a study that found that students who sit in an uncarpeted classroom miss a good bit of what is being said by the teacher and their fellow students.

“It has been documented that excessive noise and reverberation interfere with speech intelligibility, resulting in reduced understanding and therefore reduced learning. Tests have shown that listeners with normal hearing can understand only 75 percent of the words read from a list. We’re not talking about children with hearing problems here; we’re talking about children with normal hearing.”

“In a survey by the General Accounting Office, school administrators ranked poor acoustics as the most significant problem affecting the learning environment. Twenty-eight percent of responding schools, representing 11 million children, identified acoustics as being unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory.”

“Carpet is one of the best noise-absorbing acoustical materials. Carpet absorbs 10 times more airborne noise than any other flooring materials and as much as most other types of standard acoustical materials. Carpet also will reduce noise resulting from students sliding chairs or desks on the floor. It can also keep the sounds of footsteps in a hallway from disrupting classes in session.”

For more information about the acoustical properties of carpet, visit:

+ Sound Absorption, Specifying Carpet for Acoustics on the Carpet and Rug Institute site
+ Carpet Makes the Grade in Schools, a CRI brochure on how carpet improves acoustics and helps absorb background noise in schools

Thanks, Werner!

~Bethany