Two pocket doors and sound travelling - any experiences?

[9GreenBottles]

We are finalising the design of our extension and considering using pocket doors to increase accessibility. There will be an office and bathroom which we envisage will be used as our bedroom and ensuite in our old age, but until then, the access will be through a small lobby lined with cupboards - "a walk in wardrobe".

We definitely want to use a pocket door into the bathroom, but we're not sure about how much sound will travel through a second pocket door into the office, and that's important to us for client privacy purposes.

Does anybody have a set up like this, and would you recommend it?

[minipie]

I don't quite follow. Are you worried about one of you using the bathroom while the other has a client in the office? Because if so surely the person using the bathroom has to get in and out via the office and that's a much bigger privacy issue than shower/loo noise. Have I misunderstood?

Ah or are you worried that the client will need to use the loo and you'll be able to hear them weeing from the office?

[minipie]

If it's the latter I doubt it will be an issue. My parents have a set up with two pocket doors (bedroom, pocket door to dressing room, then pocket door from dressing to bathroom) and you can't hear much bathroom noise from the bedroom. You can probably tell if someone flushes the loo or is having a shower (but it's muffled) but can't hear wees/poos etc.

[9GreenBottles]

Yes, it's the latter Minipie, or rather the client might worry about being heard (we could always use another bathroom).

The fact that the noises are muffled or inaudible is just what I needed to know. Thank you.

[FakeSteakBake]

The acoustic parameter you need to look at is the R'w (weighted mean apparent sound reduction index) of the partition material between the bathroom and the office as well as the doors. The higher it is, the better the air-borne sound "insulation" properties.

Also important not to have any "air leakage" (such as gaps under doors) or structure-borne flanking.

if you have a fan in the bathroom (surely a given as no external window) that will mask some of the "weeing" sound, to some extent.

[9GreenBottles]

I'm sure the builders will know this stuff, but I hadn't realised that the partition walls were key to this, I thought it would be the door fittings, so thank you FakeSteakBake. Last night we decided that there would be a wall of cupboards on the shared wall, partly to deaden the sound, so similar kind of concept.

[minipie]

Yes my parents have wardrobes along the partition walls so that helps. And the pocket doors have hardly any gap around them. You could even fit a brush along the top/bottom of the door to fill the gap more completely.