Reducing Toilet Flush Noise in Adjacent Offices

The science of acoustics offers many challenges, some of which relate to toilets. For example:

“An experience reducing toilet flushing noise reaching adjacent offices,” Noral D. Stewart [pictured here] (Stewart Acoustical Consultants, Raleigh, NC), Acoustical Society of America – 161st Meeting Lay Language Papers, Presented Thursday afternoon, May 26, 2011, 161st ASA Meeting, Seattle, Washington, Popular version of paper 4pAAb4. (Thanks to Jennifer Ouellette for bringing this to our attention.) The author reports:

“An office building was experiencing loud toilet flushing noise in a row of five offices adjacent to rest rooms on seven floors of the building. In each row of five offices, the three in the middle were immediately adjacent to the rest rooms. The middle office shared a wall with both the men’s and women’s rest rooms. The toilets were a new design for very low water consumption, 1.2 gallon per flush.”