Sampling strategies for the verification of acoustic performances of buildings

The acoustic classification of buildings has been implemented in recent years in many European countries but a methodology for the verification of acoustic requirements in new and existing buildings has been defined only in few of these countries. The proposal of the new standard ISO/DIS 19488 on the acoustic classification of dwellings describes two alternative verification procedures; one is based on calculations, visual inspections and field measurements, while the other is based only on field measurements. In this second case, at least a sufficiently representative 10% of all types of construction of separating walls and floors must be measured. Some countries have defined a specific procedure for the field measurements; in the case of Italy, there are two national standards which deal with the procedure of classification and the sampling methods. In the paper a comparison between the sampling procedures is shown. The examples of application of the different procedures will refer to a case study representative of typical constructions.