Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts

Mass Timber's Acoustic Revolution w/Aedan Callaghan of Pliteq

• Brady Potts & Nic Wilson

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Ever struggled with unwanted noise in your timber buildings or wondered how recycled materials can enhance acoustic performance? Discover how Aedan Callaghan from Pliteq is revolutionizing sound solutions in mass timber construction. Learn about the challenges of acoustics in modern buildings, innovative approaches to minimize vibration and noise, and how sustainable practices are shaping the future of the AEC industry.

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Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction: The Importance of Acoustics in Mass Timber
0:47 – Meet Aedan Callaghan from Pliteq
1:07 – Acoustic Challenges in Modern Buildings
2:04 – The Role of Recycled Rubber in Sound Isolation
5:24 – Understanding Airborne vs. Structure-Borne Sound
7:45 – Unique Acoustic Solutions for Mass Timber
12:41 – Impact of Fastener Spacing on Acoustic Performance
16:23 – Benefits of Dry Acoustic Systems
19:10 – Case Study: Reducing Embodied Carbon with Dry Systems
22:12 – Addressing Flanking Paths in Timber Structures
25:56 – Best Practices for Acoustic Design in Mass Timber
28:05 – Sustainability and Recycling in Acoustic Products
31:30 – Future Innovations in Mass Timber Acoustics
34:09 – Final Thoughts and How to Connect with Pliteq

Looking for your mass timber community? Attend the 2025 Mass Timber Group Summit in Denver Co - Aug 20-22nd!

Speaker 1:

We use end-of-life recycled rubber as that isolation material. One of the reasons for that is rubber is a great isolating material. The properties are excellent for reducing the vibration and providing some damping. If you think of, like your engine in your car, it sits on rubber engine mounts so that you don't feel all the vibration of that engine getting into the car frame and then being quite uncomfortable to drive.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever stayed in a nice hotel or moved into a new apartment only to lie awake at night hearing the guy upstairs snoring or the baby next door crying, or footsteps pounding down the hall at two in the morning? Acoustic issues like these kill comfort and tank long-term building value, and Mass Timber is no exception. But don't worry, we're breaking down what causes these problems and how to solve them. We're breaking down what causes these problems and how to solve them. Today's guest, aidan Callahan, is the director of Mass Timber at Plytech, a company that's helped solve acoustic challenges on over 100 mass timber projects across North America. For more than a decade, plytech's been leading the charge on research and product innovation to make these buildings quieter, more comfortable and better performing, all without sacrificing sustainability.

Speaker 2:

In this episode, we break down what makes acoustics and mass timber building so tricky, the most common pain points and how to solve them, and how Plytex green building products made from recycled end-of-life materials are making high-performance acoustic solutions more sustainable than ever. Whether you're designing, building or developing mass timber projects, this conversation is packed with real-world takeaways to help you deliver quieter, higher-quality buildings from the ground up. But before we dive in, early bird pricing for the Mass Timber Group Summit is ending. Soon you can meet experts like Aiden, get your questions answered in person and stay ahead of the curve. Use code PODCAST all caps at masstimbergroup to save 50 bucks on your ticket, so that let's get into it so I've been with the company about five years.

Speaker 1:

Um, one of my buddies are material in materials engineering at school found the company was like hey, this, this is really cool company doing pretty interesting stuff, using end-of-life recycled waste to create quieter buildings. So it's kind of a natural fit yeah, totally, man, that's a.

Speaker 2:

That's a good story. I always like how there's like a, a tee up. A friend says, hey, check this out, do this, whatever. I grab it. But it's like, oh, I submitted a resume and then I got hired and whatever. It's like the best, the best opportunities I think come from like referrals and people in your network. Um, so, in the in the world of acoustics and sound, tell me about the problems that we're addressing in buildings like what? What is acoustics?

Speaker 1:

yeah. So I mean, as cities continue to densify, we're often living in closer and closer quarters to other people. Uh, buildings are taking on mixed use, multi-purpose, uh sort of project, uh planning where you might have crazy amenity spaces. We worked on a building recently that had a bowling alley on the 28th floor, half basketball court. There's all sorts of different activities and also just many units packed in there, and what you don't want is to be hearing everything going on outside your walls. You still want that expectation of privacy. You close the door. This is your space and you don't want to be feeling sort of intruded by exterior noise.

Speaker 2:

Uh, that disrupts your life got it, got it and the. There's two different kinds of like sound that we're trying to mitigate, right? Can you unpack those for me?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so in building acoustics there is airborne sound and there's structure born sound, uh, so airborne sound are going to be things like music playing, people talking um, yeah, that type of thing, yeah, any type of speech like that that travels through a partition and then you are hearing it on the other side. The way that that's addressed is by a single number rating called sound transmission class or stc. Uh, so that the higher the rating, the higher the single number there, the better job it does at preventing you from hearing that, um, that type of noise. Is that the other?

Speaker 2:

type is that, like my neighbor has a super loud tv and I in like the stereo, like all that kind of stuff, like that's.

Speaker 1:

That's the stcd airborne, exactly all right, yeah, so that that's what you would be hearing. Now there might be a subwoofer that he has as part of that stereo and so if it's actually something coming through the structure, that's going to be structure born noise. So sometimes it can be challenging to know what how it's coming into your space if it's directly through the partition as airborne, or if it is actually that subwoofer sitting on the floor creating vibrations coming through, so that would be structure-borne noise. Other examples are people walking the washing machine on a spin cycle. Those types of vibrations and structure-borne noise then travel through either a floor, ceiling assembly, down a wall and then are re-radiated into that adjoining space. So then the way that's addressed is another single number rating, but that's an iic rating for impact insulation class. Again it's a single number. Higher the better, but they're addressing two separate uh, sort of things got it.

Speaker 2:

So tell me, like, if I'm thinking like traditional construction, we're getting a mass timber in a second, but like this is like a two by four drywall, insulation, cladding, whatever sucks for most sound anything, whether it's impact or airborne or whatever tell me. Tell me like the mechanisms of like how that stuff comes through, and what is what sucks about normal construction that doesn't use any like special acoustic considerations?

Speaker 1:

yeah.

Speaker 1:

So when you have uh, sort of thin, not very robust assemblies, it often means that you have rigid contact between the two sides.

Speaker 1:

So if you have a two by four wall and you put drywall on either side, when sound hits one side it can then get straight through those two by four studs and then re-radiate the drywall on the other side. So examples of improving a wall assembly would be like a double stud, so you can actually do two studs with a one inch gap between them and then drywall the two outsides of that. Now when the sound gets into that first wall, there's an air gap preventing it from getting into that second wall. So, for example, a double stud wall is often around an STC 60 to 63 or so, but it takes up a much wider area of your footprint. You can also do it by using like resilient isolation clips, like genie clips, so that is basically just decoupling one of the sides of drywall, uh, so you can keep the floor plate of that wall assembly a little more reduced but still achieve the same rating by better isolating the drywall layer?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and so like, when you, when you're, when you're basically disconnecting the two solid sets of materials on each side, does that work for both the airborne and the impact transmission?

Speaker 1:

so impact sound transmission only applies vertically to floor ceiling assemblies. Airborne sound transmission applies to both walls and floor ceiling assemblies, but in theory yes for iic on a floor ceiling assembly. If you were isolating different layers on those vertical assemblies then that would work as well. Got it?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so now I understand a little bit about the world that we're talking about and the challenges with let's call it doing things the way we've always done it right, like the crappy apartment sounds, et cetera. How is the acoustic conversation unique in the world of mass timber, like what's what's? How does this material behave in different ways than, say, concrete or steel, where it's most often being displaced?

Speaker 1:

yeah, it's a good question. So the first piece to it I would say is that, ironically, in mass timber the mass isn't actually all that high. It's probably it's about between a quarter to one-fifth the weight of the same thickness concrete. So there's a pretty drastic reduction, uh, in the mass of that assembly, one of the great parts of it, because we're building lighter, more sustainable buildings. But it does acoustically create challenges. Now you might be thinking like wood frame or steel construction. Those also would be quite lightweight. What they have going for them is there's always a ceiling. If you're building an open web truss or a TJI light wood frame assembly, you're almost always going to have your drywall ceiling there and you're going to have it decoupled, uh, from those joists either using like a resilient channel or isolation clips like genie clips, and so that's doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Um, with mass timber, everyone wants the beautiful exposed ceilings. So now we have less mass and no ceilings, and that's really where the problem comes from.

Speaker 2:

Got it, and so the mass or the. Is mass and density interchangeable here, like when you're talking about that. So it's like you know it's. We're building lighter and faster. That's a perk of mass timber. But because it's not as dense as, say, a concrete floor slab, the sound can travel through it, and then we're missing the ceilings underneath. And so if we want the exposed ceiling of mass timber, like, how do we still get the sound class that we want?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you're basically forced to do everything on the talk side. So you're having to take this fairly low performing base structure and bring it up to either minimum code for multifamily or sort of even higher levels if you're trying to do market rate or luxury level separation between units. So you end up with some type of subfloor system that's often a lot more robust than what a wood frame project would be doing because, like I mentioned, in the ceiling, so you're moving more of your acoustic isolation to the top side of the timber. And what does that normally look like? Yes, I'd say uh, typically a very common assembly has been something like uh, isolation mat installed directly over the clt and then some type of subfloor that's providing enough mass decoupled from the timber. So very common would be like a two inch topping on something like a half inch to one inch isolation material.

Speaker 2:

And when you say isolation material, break that down for me. What does that actually look like?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the role of that is to keep the two materials, the topping and the CLT, able to vibrate independently. So when airborne sound hits that topping or people are walking, it can vibrate without transmitting those vibrations down into the structure. So we use end-of-life, recycled rubber as that isolation material. One of the reasons for that is rubber is a great isolating material. The properties are excellent for reducing the vibration and providing some damping. If you think of your engine in your car, it sits on rubber engine mounts so that you don't feel all the vibration of that engine getting into the car frame and then being quite uncomfortable to drive.

Speaker 2:

So we're trying to use the same properties but in in buildings got it, and so do you have to affix that concrete let's assume it's a concrete topper to the mass timber below, or does it just free flow?

Speaker 1:

most projects it's free flowing uh when it is a fixed, that's often referred to as, like, a composite system. So timber concrete uh composites are, I'd say, something that have some benefit and uh, structural engineers can sometimes go to wider uh spans uh with that type of system. That does introduce another variable of what does this bridging between the concrete and the timber through what you're otherwise relying on to isolate those do? And that was actually what we looked at in a paper that we did for the 2023 world conference on timber engineering was evaluating the change in acoustic performance from those timber concrete composites with different fastener spacings depending on what level of sort of tcc connection was needed got it because, like it in the end, like you're trying to like separate the two layers but if you're driving whatever like a big screw or something to connect both of those, you're almost kind of bypassing that decoupling system, right?

Speaker 2:

Obviously like, maybe the more screws closer together, the bigger detriment that has the acoustics, right? Is that what you guys found?

Speaker 1:

ago or so that looked at a similar phenomenon with resilient channel, because drywallers, once they put up the the sheet, they can't actually see where the where the joists are. So a study found that about 90 of projects had screws go through the resilient channel and hit the joists behind it. So now again, what you're supposed to be using to isolate that isn't doing its job anymore. And it was similar findings. The number of screws that were short-circuiting the resilient channel, the worse the performance got. Likewise, if you have a very tight screw spacing in that TCC, the lower the performance. If it's isolated, or wider spacing between screws, then still maintain the higher level of that isolation. Um, next up we're on our next world conference of tumor engineering paper. We're looking at what that actual uh, sheer slip modulus is. So we're working with fast net and their concept lab doing some now structural testing. So we've done the acoustics piece.

Speaker 2:

Now we're kind of seeing what that structural effect of those systems is Got it, and when do you think you'll be able to share those results with the world?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're presenting that in Brisbane in June, so I think the paper will be public around then, yeah, if, if this episode comes out around that time we'll make sure to leave both of us down there. So, yeah, so we've talked about kind of the solutions, the actual mechanisms that go in there. What about, like, alternative ways, like if we're always doing concrete toppers but we recognize, hey, there's all these different challenges and different components that we have to add to it. Is there any way that we can do these things differently?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that we can do these things differently. Yeah, so I would say in recent times, probably over the number of years, a lot more projects are actually using the CLT as the diaphragm in these buildings and what that does is it frees up that topping to be non-structural. Gypsum concrete, for example, is always non-structural. These concrete toppings sometimes they are partially structural, sometimes they're not, in cases where they're not structural and solely providing a subfloor mass layer essentially to sit on that G-MAT FF.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that we've had feedback from is bringing all of that wet trade, all of that water in that concrete, into a wood building poses a number of challenges. You're trying to keep the timber as dry as possible. You definitely see a spike in the moisture content in the building when all these wet toppings are brought in. So there has been a big push in the industry towards dry systems where you don't have this wet poured topping. So one of the more recent products that we came out with called the Genie Board and that's a recycled gypsum fiberboard. So using the gypsum from the drywall waste bins at every job site, pressed into a high density board. So it's not like your gypsum wall board that you can just score and snap. It's a much more dense flooring grade subfloor board, but that gets rid of the cure time and then gives sort of a shorter install window and also gets rid of the moisture challenges. There's also a weight reduction with that, so that's. One other piece is that you can lighten the structure going to those dry systems.

Speaker 2:

So when you're applying like this recycled compressed gypsum board, so one you said, like you're removing the moisture out of the building, which moisture is generally the enemy of timber. But then you also heard you say you're obviously reducing the weight because you don't have two inches of concrete or whatever on top of it. What does that do for, like the building structural systems, like does that allow cost savings in those areas?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we actually did a case study.

Speaker 1:

We worked with the Telly Jones, dci engineers, swinerton and a few other partners on this case study for a New York project where it was modeled as a concrete studio housing business as usual case, and then used CLT and mass timber as the proposed alternate to reduce the embodied carbon.

Speaker 1:

We actually went one step further in that project and showed your sort of typical mass timber with cord topping and then a dry system using the genie board. So there on that job, there was a 10 pound per square foot weight reduction and when DCI ran the structural calculations again, that weight reduction over the seven stories actually resulted in being able to reduce 10% of the rebar out of the podium and the foundation, two inches of concrete off the foundation slab thickness and 16% reduction in the CFS. It was a hybrid using CFS load-bearing walls, so there was a 16% reduction in the weight of CFS walls as well. That sounds like a lot of compounding effects, right? Yeah, so both from an embodied carbon component, you're taking out all quite high emitting materials steel and concrete but you're also saving quite a bit of cost there. And there was a shortening of the schedule by seven to ten days by getting rid of the cure time of those toppings yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

Speaker 2:

And what about the, the sound performance? Were you guys able to meet, match or exceed?

Speaker 1:

yeah. So it was a really, I'd say, comprehensive and uh, great study there. Where we chose, we wanted to make sure everything was apples to apples. So the concrete seven inch slab, the CLT with topping and the CLT with genie board, we made sure were all the same or within a point of STC and IIC ratings between each other, so they were all comparable and all above minimum code for multifamily.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So let me just make sure I understand this right. So if you're using a dry system, you're saving. What about floor-to-floor height? Did that change?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it actually reduced that. With the topping we were 2, 3⁄8 inches plus finished floor On the dry system we one and uh five eighths. So you were saving about an uh. Is that about three quarters of an inch? Uh off that system. So you are able to bring down your floor-to-floor heights a bit as well. So you maximize the floor to floor height to bring down your subfloor.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally that makes a lot of sense. So so, reduced rebar, reduced foundational thickness, reduced, you know, load bearing walls with the cfs faster, except usually you say seven to ten days, yeah, so it kind of seems like all of that stacks very much so into both the speed and then the cost savings category, was it? And so when, when you shake all of those out, was the cost of using the, the genie board, did it net out in the product owner's favor?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so it netted out negative. The cost on the dry system, uh itself was a bit higher one to two dollars per square foot higher from just an installed cost on that component.

Speaker 2:

But as a holistic view on the project, um, it was yeah, and I think that's why it's important to look at everything in a holistic project sense, like everybody talks about this mass timber. It's like if you're looking at timber to concrete material, to material like you're going to be more expensive over here, but when you look at the holistic project right, then things shake out a little differently, and I think this is exactly one of those instances that you're talking about um, yeah, and it can be quite challenging to get that holistic view.

Speaker 1:

You also have to be making these decisions early enough in the schedule to actually realize them, like on a project that's already had all the permits pulled and they're in the ground and have poured the foundations. Now you can't realize any of those sort of trickle down savings by making that switch later on.

Speaker 2:

So so, during the design process, at what stage should they be considering solutions like this Sure?

Speaker 1:

I would say like yeah, definitely the earlier the better. I think we are normally seeing like into dd, uh or early cds, like really trying to make sure that those are figured out so that you can't actually realize any of those trickle down effects. Um, I think in the mass timber world everyone kind of agrees the earlier that you can bring all these decisions forward, the better it is for just the project as a whole.

Speaker 2:

So it's probably along those same lines, got it and so we talked about kind of like wet versus dry, like how these sounds set, how sound travels, you know, airborne versus impact, etc. What other considerations do people that are designing and working with mass timber need to consider to make sure that their building is like acoustically quote unquote, up the snow?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one other big component of acoustics in mass timber is flanking, so wood has a propensity to vibrate. It's a lot easier for wood to transmit sounded vibrations than concrete with its lower mass. If you think of an acoustic guitar made of wood, sounds great, would not sound the same if it was made of concrete. So similar kind of thing if you have these exposed clt ceilings. Oftentimes a lot of the end performance can come down to how these flanking paths, as they're referred to, are addressed uh what, sorry, break it down barney style.

Speaker 2:

What is flanking?

Speaker 1:

yeah. So flanking is referred to as sort of like any indirect path for sound transmission. So back to the wall example that we had before. You could have an stc 60 wall, that that stC rating is measured in a lab, measuring just that wall. Then in the building you would have all of the additional flanking paths so you would have sound that's able to get into the ceiling and go across the ceiling, sound into the floor, through the floor, and then you have all these mix and match paths, so you have ceiling wall or floor wall, all these other directions, uh. So in timber the main source of flanking is the exposed wood, uh, and so detailing those junctions to make sure that you're getting your sort of adequate in situ performance in the building itself becomes very critical, as well, got it and so just to make sure I'm on the same page, so, like you, can have the highest performing wall assembly.

Speaker 2:

But because you have a continuous CLT billet over top, the sound hits that billet and we've already addressed the everything on top of it. But it could still travel through that billet over into the next room, kind of like underneath the the topping dry solution, and then above the wall into the other room. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. So how do you fix that?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so I mean there are a few ways.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if there's the ideal uh method for the industry yet, but we just finished a pretty comprehensive project with the national research council of can of Canada in their four-room flanking facility and so, looking at all these different pathways, things that help, for example, are having a break in the CLT panel, so where you have two panels that are meeting with a spline connection, it's very good for preventing the sound from continuing through the ceiling.

Speaker 1:

If there were two rooms and one room did have a ceiling and the other is exposed, that's also very helpful. We've done testing on bulkheads. So there's a few different means and methods to reduce that flanking noise. But looking at it sort of in a comprehensive view definitely is critical so that you don't just over design one of your partitions and then if you've ignored flanking, then you're not actually getting what you paid for with that upgraded assembly right, because you can pay for the you know the ferrari of wall assemblies, but if you didn't address the flanking path above you, then that ferrari is basically not going to start and it's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

And so if you're, if you're sitting down with the designer or you're giving them advice and saying, hey, here's like what you really need to consider whether we're designing multifamily luxury or maybe even like research institutions or public spaces where, like, there's a lot, a lot of sound what are some of like the common things that you advise architects and designers to look at to make sure that their building is performing performing to the acoustic standards that they're looking for?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So the first thing that I always tell any project team is that on a master building specifically, but really I think on any building of any type hire an acoustic engineer. There are great firms across north america that do this uh and are experts at what they do. They look at everything hvac, noise, sound, transmission. We work really closely with all of them to make sure that we can then implement systems that meet their uh recommendation. On what level of performance, they'll have those conversations with the owner of sort of guiding them on what are you performance? They'll have those conversations with the owner of sort of guiding them on what are you designing the building for? What's an adequate sort of level to design for for that space? That would be, first and foremost, um. Then the second thing would be, when you're looking at your acoustic separation, uh, this I'd say try to match up your acoustic systems with what you're designing the building for.

Speaker 1:

So sustainability is often a really big piece. So we've actually started putting embodied carbon numbers on all of these floor ceiling assemblies, just because we know that is one of the big reasons a lot of people are considering timber is because it's a renewable material. You're lowering the embodied carbon. You're actually creating these sort of biogenic carbon sinks to hold that, and so using recycled material in that acoustic layer and or recycled content for getting rid of the cementitious toppings, it's also, uh, let's say it has a lot of benefit. And then, lastly, having sort of like a design review with the different components, making sure that not only are the systems tested to the sort of proper level, but your junctions are also being looked at, reviewed, uh becomes very important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I like that. That's really good and we kind of touched on it throughout different parts of the interview. But you guys do use those. You use recycled components for the products that you you're using. I heard we talked a lot about like uh was a gypsum that went into the genie board, and then you talked about rubber are. Did those come from, like car tires?

Speaker 1:

exactly, yeah. So our genie mat ff, for example, is made from 92 percent post-consumer recycled content from end-of-life car tires. Uh, last year we recycled about six million car tires, on pace for more next year, but they're a pretty endless uh problem and waste source. On average, we're producing one end-of-life scrap tire per person per year, so we're nowhere close to yet reaching 100 recovery and recycling.

Speaker 2:

So we're trying to chip away at all of that until none of them are ending up in these tire piles or landfills yeah, totally, and I appreciate that mission and I've seen a video that plytech put out kind of going through like the numbers that you talked about, with recycling these car tires and it's really impressive. Like six million car tires, like that's a, that's a ridiculous amount of old tires. But, like you said, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to like the global production of this stuff. But I'm happy that we're finding an avenue to take an end of life thing that would normally end up in the landfill and then turning it it to something that can go into a building product that you know lasts 100 plus years. Yeah, the, the tires and the recycled gypsum in your products. Does that help contribute to like lead points or anything like that?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, so there's a number of lead categories that we can contribute lead points to. We have a sustainability guide helping teams sort of walk through what categories those contribute points towards. We also have epds, or environmental product declarations, for all our products. That was a really interesting exercise to go through, looking at what the carbon footprint of each material is. Uh, so you look at all your raw materials, what the energy use at our facility is. It even gets into like the nitty-gritty of what the mix of energy sources on that grid are. Is it nuclear, is it hydroelectric, is it coal? All of those go into it and so at the end you have this kilograms of co2 equivalent per meter squared of the material. That can also help in these whole building lifecycle assessments that we're seeing more and more.

Speaker 2:

Now. That's super awesome. I'm assuming people can find those on your website if they wanted to go into them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're on our website. They're listed on a number of third party databases as well, like UPD Hub, or they can always reach out to myself, all right.

Speaker 2:

And then so you guys already have, you know, recycled products. You're addressing different solutions. You're, uh, coming out with new products like what's next for you guys in the world of acoustics or what's next for aiden yeah, um, I mean we continue to just try and provide as efficient, uh, an acoustic solution to all new building typologies.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that we've been seeing is different thicknesses of CLT coming online. Just trying to keep up with all the CLT offerings and have acoustic testing on all of them is its own fun challenge. We just came across a four-ply CLT in the past year. That I didn't realize was a thing, so then we did some testing on that Thin 5-ply is a big thing, so instead of just the 6-7-8s now doing like a 5-5-8s inch 5-ply. So we've now tested about 160 different types of CLT-specific assemblies, so we'll continue to keep up with where that goes. The other thing is, I think, trying to provide solutions for some of these modular assemblies as well. So as people come up with unique modular designs, what those assemblies look like and providing testing on those is another really fun and exciting avenue for us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I'm excited to see what you guys come out with next because, like you said, there's this seems there's no end to the innovation about even just different panels, new modular volumetric flat pack, like whatever it's like, there's a different, you know assembly, you know it seems like every other month, and so, like you guys are going out, you're testing all of those different types of things, like here's exactly what happens with sound, because every, every structure is going to be unique, right, is that fair?

Speaker 1:

yeah, exactly, and that's one of the great things. Like plytech was founded by an engineer, uh still a ceo paul downey. But he believes in like just testing everything, like third party independently test everything. So, uh, it's great having sort of that enable us to. Just every time we hear of a new structure, he's like let's test it and see how it is and have data on it. So, yeah, lots, yeah, never a dull moment, I love that Last question for you.

Speaker 2:

If you had somebody in an elevator and you had to tell them something about what you're doing in the acoustics world in mass timber, and they had to understand exactly what you're talking about in 30 seconds or less what would you tell them?

Speaker 1:

I would say we are using recycled end-of-life materials to prevent you from staying in hotel rooms curing everyone upstairs or living in your apartment or condo building hearing the baby crying or the people stomping around upstairs. That that's our mission.

Speaker 2:

That's good. I love how you tied that to like real world experiences because, as you were describing that, I could literally picture instances where that exact scenario has happened to me. And now I'm thinking back and like, oh, that's because there was some poor acoustic design going on with this project, and I love that. If somebody wanted to learn more about what you guys are doing how to solve an acoustic challenge for their building how can they get in contact with you?

Speaker 1:

yeah, uh, by email. Um, I can send my email out after, but it's a callahan at plytechcom. Uh, I'm on linkedin um. We also have some resources on our website. Um, we have a mass timber acoustic design guide um that people can download. So, yeah, reach out and I can um share any sort of resources or answer any questions people might have.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic man, we'll all link your contact info below and, uh, thanks for coming on and explaining some acoustic, uh, the acoustic world, to me, if you will, because this is something that you hear a lot about but I don't hear or I haven't learned enough about it to really understand and grasp it. So you helped me kind of like pull that together. So thank you for doing that. No, thanks for having me on. All right, we'll see you.

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