Part E Clarification Particularly Part E2 If you want to know how your DIY projects could be affected by building and planning regulations, click here to post questions and view answers

[Edog75]

Hi

Is anyone able to provide some clarification on Part E - E2 in particular?

It states:

E2. Dwelling-houses, flats and rooms for residential purposes shall be designed and constructed in such a way that:

(a) internal walls between a bedroom or a room containing a water closet, and other rooms; and
(b) internal floors

Provide reasonable resistance to sound.

Requirement E2 does not apply to:

(a) an internal wall which contains a door;
(b) an internal wall which separates an en suite toilet from the associated bedroom;
(c) existing walls and floors in a building which is subject to a material change of use.


That sounds fairly unambiguous to me - any bedroom or any room with a wc that adjoins any other room in the house needs to comply with the sound resistance requirements - E.g. WC and a kitchen, bedroom and another bedroom.

However, I've been told (by an "expert") that this doesn't apply to an adjoining stud wall between two bedrooms. The wall in question would not be covered by the stated exclusions.

Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[DNJohnston]

I'm too late to be of help to you EDog, but in case anyone else ever looks this up:

It absolutely applies between bedrooms. That's kind of the most important one! The only reason it wouldn't apply would be because there was an interconnecting door between the two bedrooms, which would be weird but not unheard of.

Rw 40 dB is really not hard to achieve, (and doesn't afford great standards of sound insulation anyway) so trying to get out of doing even that is seriously questionable!

[Jamie_89]

Hey there I would usually design all internal walls and floors in accordance with E2 regardless of location. The criteria is 40 dB Rw which can easily be achieved with a relatively standard timber stud, 25mm insulation and standard platser boards.

The E2 criteria is juts a design criteria and these wall would never need to undergo pre- completion sound testing.

I hope this helps