Water Park Heat Exchangers “The Great Wall of Mt Washington”
In December 2008, Noise Control Products of Atlanta Georgia was contacted by a commercial developer with a potential noise problem. The indoor water park that Red Jacket Resorts was constructing needed a noise reducing wall to maintain their tranquil mountain side setting. They wanted to create a warm, welcoming indoor water park to accommodate its skiers after a cold day on the slopes. Keeping the water at a constant 82 degrees all year long required large chillers and heat exchangers to maintain the temperature. The chillers created a lot of noise and would have ruined the customer experience Red Jacket was creating.
ArtUSA recommended the sound absorbing noise wall system. Three additional noise barrier wall products were offered by three competing acoustical consultants. Ultimately Ron Alexander of Red Jacket Resorts chose ArtUSA and the sound absorbent noise wall system. The noise absorbing wall system is made up of 6″ high x 2.7″ thick extruded PVC tongue & groove rails that are stacked one on top of the other to reach the desired height.
Available in multiple lengths, the rails of the Silent protector have one side (face) routed to allow sound to enter. Acoustic mineral wool inside the rail captures the incoming noise , reducing the amount of noise reaching the receiver on the other side. Additionally less noise is reflected back to the source area because the noise is absorbed. At 210 feet long and 12 feet high the wall was going to be seen and it needed to be attractive. Cost is always a concern, however, and the wall needed to be cost effective too. The Sound absorbing wall is less expensive than walls with similar acoustical performance. It has an STC (Sound Transmission Class) of 31 and an NRC (Noise Reduction Co-efficient) of 1.00 – effective reduction properties.
Not only is the light weight product good for the bottom line it’s also good for the environment. “more product can be carried per truck which means fewer trucks and fewer trucks means less fuel is spent getting the product there. Not to mention approximately 90% of the product is made from recycled PVC.”. In fact he goes on “in a 1000′ long by 10′ high wall there is approximately 40,000 lbs of vinyl used with 36,000 lbs being recycled product & at the end of the products life all of it can be easily recycled again. Red jacket Resorts requested post & footing engineering drawings prior to receipt of the wall product. This allowed their installers to prepare the site & drill the holes for the steel posts before the product arrived. Because they were under a strict timeline, Red Jacket completed the steel installation before taking delivery of the noise wall rails. This allowed them to immediately install the wall rails upon arrival.
All said and done the project went from first contact to completion in 75 days with the wall finished the beginning of March this year – 2009.
When asked how the project went, Tim White of ArtUSA said” This is near Mt. Washington. The weather is very harsh. The statement was made that metal would not have survived this climate due to all the chemicals & salt. Ron Alexander installed this wall in 3 days and is very happy with the ease of installation. Ron also purposely backed his truck into the wall to see how durable it was,on was amazed that the panels flexed and popped right back to original position. He is extremely happy with the project.”
With the wall up & noise concerns behind them, Red Jacket Resorts can get back to their core business operations.