Featured Projects and Industry Solutions

Fort Sam Houston

Location: San Antonio, Texas

Industry: Military Buildings

Installation Type: High Density Residential New Construction

Products: QuietRock 525

This project at Fort Sam Houston has been designed to meet LEED Silver Certification standards. QuietRock can potentially assist architects and designers in obtaining up to 6 points toward LEED Certification. Serious Energy has shipped more than 1.5 million QuietRock-brand panels, used in more than 40,000 multifamily and commercial construction projects.

Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas is the world's largest military medical training facility. More than 27,000 military and civilian personnel work at this U.S. Army post, and funding for construction projects on post average $30 million annually. A National Historic Landmark, and one of the Army's oldest installations, Fort Sam Houston boasts the largest collection of historic structures -- more than 900 buildings. The post's different sections represent different eras of historical construction and reflect Army concepts in planning and design. Careful preservation of these areas allows the post to live with its history, surrounded by existence of the traditions of excellence established when the first soldier arrived there in 1845.

Create Quiet Living Quarters

With an eye to keeping the historical integrity of the post intact, the first of four new construction projects using Serious Energy green sustainable building products is for living units that will make up the majority of the post’s new METC (Medical Education Training Campus) dormitories. These units will house up to 2,400 military medical personnel for short-term training and education. Additionally, construction is scheduled for 1,200 apartments over the course of the next year.

Construction of the 682 modular sections that comprise the METC dormitories were completed offsite using Serious Energy's QuietRock® soundproof drywall. There were two key design factors that needed to be addressed in order for this project to be successful. The project needed to meet the STC Rating in compliance with U.S. Army Corps of Engineering standards, and create internal floor space allocated per soldier to exact standards. Because there were external building limitations, the traditional method of using resilient channels would have eaten intofloor space, and was not considered a viable option. Fort Sam Houston turned to QuietRock to allow the project to conserve space by building as if they were using regular drywall.

There were a number of technical challenges to face in order to be in compliance with the Army Corps of Engineers:

• Create an STC-rating of close to 50 in a location where nearby training can include base artillery, tank, air, and chopper noise.
• Guarantee the exact specified amount of livable of square footage per soldier while dealing with exterior building constraints.
• Ease of assembly was needed for the modular housing to be created in one facility and assembled on post.
• Obtain points toward LEED Certification standards.

The Serious Solution

Serious Energy's Quiet products allow quiet living in noisy, densely-populated areas like military posts. A single sheet of QuietRock is equivalent, acoustically, to eight sheets of standard drywall. QuietRock-based assemblies provide the lowest total cost means of achieving noise reduction. Use of Quiet products directly support sustainable zoning approaches to land use by reducing material use, thereby saving energy and reducing emissions.

Results

QuietRock 525 was implemented by the builder in an assembly line environment, and performed just like regular gypsum board. The STC rating specified was achieved without sacrificing living space.

Additional benefits for Fort Sam Houston using QuietRock, include:

• Reduced labor costs because the implementation used less material than a standard resilient channel implementation.
• Saved time as a result of fewer steps in the implementation process when compared against building resilient channels.
• No need for new product training which also reduced labor and installation costs.
• Points towards LEED Certification.

Fort Sam Houston has been designed to meet LEED Silver Certification standards. Based on LEED-NC, QuietRock can potentially assist architects and designers in obtaining up to 6 points toward LEED Certification.