Here at Soundscape Engineering, we are always on the lookout for new products that make projects more successful. A new sound blocking window mullion trim cap is one such promising product. The product is called Mull-It-Over from Mull-It-Over Products and its sound blocking capabilities and simplicity have the acoustics community abuzz.
The mullion enclosure’s attractive clean appearance could easily find a place on projects where sound blocking construction is needed in buildings with curtain walls, ribbon window and store front construction. The acoustical test results of STC 57 for the Mull-It-Over enclosure are certainly impressive. For comparison, untreated mullions generally test in the field around STC 28 and other manufactured closures test at STC 40 or less. The increase to STC 57 is an enormous improvement.
For those readers who are wondering why and when this would be useful, let me explain. Interior partitions that terminate at window mullions result in notoriously poor sound isolation the rooms on either side of the partition. We have tested and consulted on numerous projects where the degraded sound isolation due to this condition was a problem for the building owner. Condominiums in high-rise buildings, hotel rooms, offices, classrooms, hospital patient rooms, and many other types of spaces.
For years, acoustical consultants have provided rather cumbersome details for high STC mullion enclosures because nothing on the market performed sufficiently. The prospect of discarding those details in favor of an elegant manufactured unit that should make architects and contractors happy is very exciting to us.