UKAS ACCREDITATION: SOUND INSULATION TESTING FOR PART E OF THE BUILDING REGULATIONS

In October 2024, after a process to expand the scope of our existing accreditation, Hayes McKenzie gained UKAS accreditation according to ISO 17025:2017 for sound insulation testing in accordance with the requirements of Approved Document E (ADE) to the building regulations. Our UKAS Accredited Testing Laboratory (No. 9452) now covers testing protocols for field measurements of airborne and impact sound insulation which fully comply with Part E of the Building Regulations for England and Wales.

Pre-completion testing is a requirement of ADE which relates to party walls and floors in new dwellings, or any residential conversion. Unless constructions are built to Robust Details by approved contractors, pre-completion testing must be carried out where there are shared partitions with either other dwellings or commercial properties. Testing is usually carried out after the third fix stage but before floor coverings are laid and the results of tests are compared with the performance standards at section 0 of ADE in order to establish whether the required levels of airborne and impact sound insulation have been achieved. Section 0 of ADE also states at paragraph 0.4 that: ‘test bodies conducting testing should preferably have UKAS accreditation(or a European equivalent) for field measurements’.

The ANC registration scheme offers an alternative to UKAS accreditation and a number of consultants from Hayes McKenzie have been ANC registered testers over the past 14 years with Seth Roberts being consistently registered throughout. Seth has been carrying out sound insulation testing and providing consultancy advice on building acoustics for more than 14 years and has gained a wealth of experience in this area. Seth is the head of our dedicated sound insulation testing department and worked alongside our quality manager Robin Woodward in the process to expand our UKAS accreditation to include sound insulation testing. Although only newly accredited, our years of sound insulation testing experience mean that your project will be expertly dealt with from start to finish.

Robin started making changes to our quality manual in January 2024 and late February 2024 saw our initial extension to scope assessment from UKAS where they highlighted any areas in which our quality management system was lacking and answered our queries regarding our specific requirements according to the ISO 17025:2017 standard. Due to some requirements for carrying out tests as part of the accreditation process, there was a slightly protracted period where we addressed improvement actions from UKAS over the following 6 months. All the evidence requested by UKAS was completed and submitted by August 2024 and issue number 003 of our UKAS accreditation schedule, including the extension to scope, was finally published on 18^th October 2024.

If you'd like to know more about sound insulation testing or our services, don't hesitate to get in contact with us using the details on our Contact page.