When I started my career as an acoustical consultant back in the US, I had no idea that Winnipeg, my hometown, was home to not one but multiple companies that manufacture acoustical products.

As an independent consultant, I give building owners, property managers and contractors different options for where to source acoustical products, and it’s nice to be able to provide not only made-in-Canada options but made-in-Winnipeg options.

A Chance Discovery

I discovered one of these Winnipeg-based companies by accident while skating down the Nestaweya River Trail at the Forks. I noticed that one of the warming huts, a big grey box, was extremely quiet inside and was clad in perforated metal. It sounded and looked like I was in a silencer, a device fitted between HVAC ducts to absorb fan noise. How strange, I thought. But then I walked outside the warming hut and saw the logo ‘Price’ on the box. Price Industries is one of the world’s big manufacturers of HVAC system noise control equipment, along with Vibroacoustics and IAC. So I was in fact standing inside a silencer, a giant silencer that could fit multiple people inside!

The Price Warming Hut, a human-sized duct silencer

I had always thought Price was an American company, because I knew they did a lot of manufacturing in the Atlanta area, so I was shocked (and pleased) to learn that not only was Price founded in Winnipeg, its headquarters are still in Winnipeg and it has a major manufacturing plant and R&D facility a 15 minute bike ride from where I live.

A few months later, through another chance encounter, I met a noise control applications engineer at Price and he invited me to take a tour of Price’s facilities. Finally, I thought, I’ve found my people. Moving back to Winnipeg to start my consulting business, I never imagined I would meet other professionals I could talk to about the challenges of pressure drop and the 250 Hz octave band.

I have now made two visits to Price, the second one just a week ago to see their newly renovated and expanded R&D lab and showroom.

Hearing Products in Action

Price’s silencer demonstration room

The most enlightening (and fun) part of visiting Price was listening to the product demonstration mockups in their R&D showroom. I am used to selecting products out of their catalogue (and their competitors’ catalogues) based on numerical test data, but nothing beats actually hearing the products in action and comparing them to each other. It was striking to me just how much more effective some products are than others at reducing noise. It’s something I’d always known looking at the catalogue numbers, but it felt more real hearing it demonstrated.

I Love Louvers

Two acoustical louvers

I also appreciated that Price had many louvers on display, including two acoustical louvers they unhooked from the wall so I could take a closer look. I was particularly interested in the louvers because I’m working on a project that may require a custom acoustical louver to comply with local historic preservation laws.

Building a Quieter Fan Coil Unit

Another highlight of the tour was our stop at the fan coil units, or FCUs. FCUs are essentially mini air handlers. They blow conditioned air into a small zone of a building, sometimes just a single room. The fan in the FCU generates noise that radiates through the casing and also travels down the duct, so it’s good design practice to locate them away from any noise-sensitive spaces. For example, if you need to serve a classroom with an FCU, it’s best to put it in a mechanical room or a utility closet or even above the ceiling of a hallway outside the classroom.

But sometimes the only option is to locate the FCU very close to a sensitive space, or inside the sensitive space itself. I’ve run into this challenge on historic renovation projects, where the old architecture leaves little space for modern HVAC systems, and in more modern open-plan buildings with exposed ceiling decks, where there is simply nowhere for the mechanical services to hide. In these situations a loud FCU can be a big problem.

I learned that Price recently updated its FCU line to include better internal sound insulation, reducing the baseline case-radiated noise. This really helps if an FCU has to be located inside a noise-sensitive space, because the after-market solutions are not great: you can either build a bulky gypsum board box around the FCU or wrap the FCU in equally ugly ‘limp mass lagging’, a sheet of vinyl fused with a heavy material compound.

Are Your Ducts Old and Tired?

Price’s Great Wall of Diffusers

After strolling through Price’s beautiful R&D lab and gazing at its ‘Great Wall of Diffusers’, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favourite movie opening scenes. Terry Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian caper ‘Brazil’ begins with a television commercial advertising the latest trends in duct designs. Then there’s a big explosion and the movie title, rendered in shocking pink and blue neon, rotates onto the screen accompanied by screeching strings and brass. My trip to Price of course ended less dramatically - I was sent on my way with a handshake, two cute stickers and a bag of gummy snacks.

How I Can Help

HVAC and other mechanical systems noise control is a core part of my consulting offering.

In the design stage of a construction project, I set noise level limits for sensitive spaces in the building and review the architect and mechanical engineer’s design to make sure the equipment noise will not exceed those limits. One part of how I do this is by specifying noise control products like those manufactured by Price and its competitors.

If mechanical noise is a problem in an existing building, I can also help diagnose the problem and propose noise control solutions.

Do you have a question about mechanical noise? Feel free to get in touch. If you’re in Winnipeg maybe I can get you a tour of the Price factory too.