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Soundproofing a Hearing Clinic
This project was a little different from our usual homes. We took an old HSBC bank, complete with its original vault, and helped transform it into a modern hearing clinic, keeping some of the building’s best original features along the way. Soundproofing a hearing clinic is one of the most rewarding commercial jobs we do, because the room itself is central to the care.
The reason is simple. Accurate hearing tests depend on a genuinely quiet, echo free environment, so the acoustics are not a nice to have, they are the whole point. With RNID reporting that around 18 million adults in the UK, roughly one in three, are deaf or have hearing loss, clinics like this one matter more than ever, which is exactly why Quietco took such care over it.
From Bank Vault to Soundproof Booth
The old bank vault became the clinic’s soundproof testing booth, and the before and after is striking. Where the bare vault was full of echo and reverberation, the finished room is calm and controlled, exactly what a hearing assessment needs.
The acoustic tiles, supplied by Advanced Acoustics, were colour matched to the client’s exact branding, a crisp white with two shades of purple. That means the soundproof booth does its acoustic job while looking like a natural part of the clinic rather than a box bolted into the corner.
A Clever Fix for Solid Steel Walls
This is where the old bank really tested us. The vault walls were completely solid and packed with reinforcing steel, so making mechanical fixings was impossible. Even the professional core drilling company we brought in struggled to get through them for the ventilation holes.
So we came up with a different approach and fixed every panel to the wall using heavy duty magnets. It meant no fixings into the wall at all, and it gives the client a real bonus: they can lift the panels off to swap a damaged one or redesign the booth whenever they like.
A New Acoustic Door, Keeping the Old One
A soundproof room is only as good as its door, so we replaced the old vault entrance with a high performance acoustic door, complete with all the acoustic seals it needs to keep the room quiet. It is the kind of detail that makes the difference between a booth that looks soundproof and one that genuinely is.
Best of all, we did it without losing the building’s character. The original heavy vault door was kept as a feature, so the clinic gets modern acoustic performance and a piece of the bank’s history side by side.
Fill out the contact form to book your FREE noise diagnosis call and tell us about your space. Get in touch here.
Soundproofing Built Around Your Space
The thing this project shows best is that good soundproofing is never off the shelf. Whether it is a family home, a music studio, a steam room or a commercial clinic, the right solution is built around the building, its challenges and, in this case, its branding.
We manage these projects from start to finish, solving the awkward problems like solid steel walls so our clients do not have to. If you have a space that needs to be quiet, whatever it is, a free diagnosis is the best place to begin, and you can read more about how we work first if you like.
Fill out the contact form to book your FREE noise diagnosis call and take the first step towards a quieter space. Contact us here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a hearing clinic need soundproofing?
Because accurate hearing tests rely on a quiet, echo free environment. Background noise and reverberation can affect the results, so a soundproof, acoustically controlled booth is essential.
What makes soundproofing a hearing clinic different from a home?
Commercial spaces often bring extra challenges, like solid vault walls, branding requirements and original features to preserve, so the solution has to be tailored rather than standard.
Can soundproofing be matched to our branding?
Yes. On this project the acoustic tiles were colour matched to the client’s exact branding, so the booth looked like a natural part of the clinic.
Can you keep the original features of a building?
Absolutely. Here we kept the original bank vault door as a feature while installing a new high performance acoustic door alongside it.
