The regulations, drawn up by the Department for Communities and Local Government state that pre-completion sound insulation tests should be carried out by independently accredited or registered organisations. The Association of Noise Consultants has put in place an independent registration scheme for pre-completion tests, and the “ANC Registration Scheme” received government approval in 2003. The ANC scheme requires that sound insulation tests are undertaken only by suitably qualified staff, in accordance with the appropriate standards, and using properly calibrated instrumentation. All test organisations are subject to annual audit by the ANC examiners, who also witness tests by individual testers. There are also strict requirements for documentation and record-keeping, and every test result is verifiable via the ANC secure database.
At the time of writing the scheme has processed more than 30,000 tests by registered ANC testers. Test results are held centrally, giving a unique and vast database of test results for statistical analysis. The ANC also encourages and funds research into the validity and application of the test standards – something notably lacking from the national and international standards organizations, BSI and ISO. The international standards for these tests have a number of inconsistencies and omissions and the ANC has therefore issued a Good Practice Guide for PCTs. The main points of this Guide are set out in the paper Pre-Completion Testing: The ANC Good Practice Guide.
The only acceptable alternative to the ANC Scheme is UKAS accreditation, but this does not have many of the advantages of the ANC Registration Scheme. In particular, UKAS accreditation is open to companies which are not eligible to be members of the Association of Noise Consultants, either because they are not independent consultants or because they do not have the level of expertise required to join the ANC.
ANC REGISTRATION SCHEME
