Your Home Can Help or Hinder Your Hearing
More than ten percent of all Americans have a hearing impairment. While many of us lose some hearing as we age, it's not just the elderly who suffer. I know; I lost most of the hearing in one earas a child and suffered all through my schooling as a result.
|
Having lived with a hearing deficiency, and with a hearing aid, I'm particularly attuned to the needs of the hearing-impaired. While all well-trained designers now learn about the needs of the disabled, I find that there's nothing like having first-hand experience with a disability to promote understanding and compassion. That's why I particularly enjoy working with clients who want to improve the accoustics in their homes to improve their abilities to relax and communicate.
How I Can Help You to Hear Better
I can conduct a simple home assessment in about an hour. That visit allows me to diagnose problem areas.
After that, I will either provide you with a report and suggestions for ways that you can improve communication and safety in your home yourself, or I can provide designs and supervise a contractor to make improvements in your home. The first option, which involves 2-3 hours of work, would fall under my small job pricing. The second option may qualify for larger-job discount pricing.
Interior Design for the Hearing Impaired
Here are ten things that you (and your designer) should be considering if someone in your home is hearing impaired.
- Hard surfaces of all kinds – hard flooring, furniture, windows, walls – cause reverberation that interferes with communication.
- Echoes also interfere with the ability to understand speech. Every room design should include some sound-absorbent materials.
- Background noise that comes from heating and air conditioning can make it hard to understand speech.
- High ceilings often amplify echos; dropped acoustic ceilings can help reduce noise.
- Lighting can help or hinder the communication of a person who is speech reading (lip reading). The light should be positioned to fall on the face of the speaker, but should not fall into the eyes of the hearing-impaired person. If you live with a hearing-impaired person, you should consider this when positioning lights and conversational seating.
- Sight lines are also important to the hearing-impaired. In public buildings, hearing-impaired people may be using broadcast amplifiers that will blocked when sight lines are blocked. (For example, when someone stands or raises their hands in front of another person using an amplifying device, the hearing-impaired person will get a head full of static.) Similarly, the deaf need good sight lines and adequate face lighting to be able to read an ASL interpreter.
- Room adjacency is always important in good design. No designer should but bedrooms up against one another without an intermediary closet or soundproofing because of the “cheap motel effect.” Noise from adjacent room can be especially frustrating for those who suffer hearing loss. Placing a poorly sound-proofed air conditioner or washing machine on a wall adjacent to a living room, for example, could seriously impact the resident’s ability to talk to other family members.
- Beware of noisy heating, air conditioning and plumbing. If you can’t place machine rooms away from conversational spaces, make sure that the machinery is surrounded by sound-absorbent material.
- Improve windows. Windows are often the weakest part of the outer envelope of a building, and they can transmit street, traffic or aircraft noise. Double-paned and well-insulated windows will both reduce noise and improve energy performance.
- Rule of thumb for hearing safety: If you have to shout to be heard three feet away, then the noise is too loud and is damaging your hearing. (Sound systems with headphones can produce sound levels as loud as 105 – 110 decibels. Children who listen to this much noise for several hours a day face an inevitable hearing loss.)