Featured Projects and Industry Solutions

Marianna Condominiums

Location: Portland, Oregon

Industry: High Density Home Buildings

Installation Type: Restoration and Renovation

Products: 5/8" QuietRock

“Our overall quality in construction and the soundproofing techniques created differentiation and helped us market the condominiums. For them to sell in such a timely manner given the current state of the real estate market felt great.”

David Markham Founder and Principal of OV River Group

Portland, Oregon, also known as the “City of Roses” for its beautiful rose gardens, is a city with great historic interest, and lends importance to preserving its links to the past. Marianna Condominiums were created from a carefully restored building, originally built in 1917 in downtown Portland to house the lumberman who cleared and built the downtown area.

Quiet Planning

Marianna Condos now houses 12 units and has been developed and renovated by the OV River Group.

“We started with a building where you could hear everything from floor-to-floor and hallway-to-hallway,” said David Markham, founder and principal of OV River Group. “That concerned us because the main source of lawsuits on buildings like this comes from noise problems. We wanted to do as much as we could to prevent that from happening.”

OV River Group had a number of up-front requirements to make the project successful:

• Create STC levels that met or exceeded city code requirements.
• Adhere to fire codes and regulations.
• Reliably create noise reduction.
• Find a sound-proofing solution that didn’t require staggered framing since they needed to stay within the frame of the historic building.

The Solution

OV River Group decided to terminate the relationship with their architect for negligence at the recommendation of city inspectors. The company researched soundproofing options on the Internet and came across Serious Energy Quiet® products. These allow builders to construct quality, quiet spaces in high-traffic, unpredictable, noisy, and busy environments like multi-residential housing. Use of Quiet products directly support sustainable zoning approaches to land use by reducing material use, thereby saving energy and reducing emissions.

Results to Date

“The party walls in between units are now completely soundproof. You can knock on them and can’t hear anything. Even hallway walls with doors on them are still well soundproofed. Our decision to use QuietRock on both sides with the recommended rails, along with insulation in the walls got us to the point where we have more than met everything we set out to do," said Markham.

Additional benefits from using 5/8" QuietRock for the Marianna Condos project include:

• An STC Rating of 57, ten points higher than city requirements.
• Compliant with UL code requirements for fire safety.
• Standard drywall assembly methods, with no additional training.
• Use of QuietRock in the ceiling panels eliminated airborne noise, like stereo and TV sound transmissions.
• Sold all units in a timely manner, even in a sharply down housing market.

“Our overall quality in construction and the soundproofing techniques created differentiation and helped us market the condominiums. For them to sell in such a timely manner given the current state of the real estate market felt great,” concluded Markham.