airkrete® application at the Saratoga Night Club

My name is Mark S. Reed, the Owner/ President of The Climate Chief LLC, a BPI certified company New Time Remodelers and General Contractor, LLC, established in 1986 offering a design and build service and much more. I would like to share my experience involving an acoustical project for a nightclub in Saratoga Springs, New York, located in the basement of 6 Caroline Street and surrounded by many businesses. This community attracts many tourists and the street and sidewalks are packed with people in search of all types of entertainment. With this being said, you must consider all surrounding businesses and housing tenants.

One of the biggest fears is the unknown when going into a project like this. I am not just an airkrete® GREENsulation™ installer that pumps the product and gets it out. There was much more at stake. There was the man’s dream of operating his own nightclub with live bands in one of the busiest alleyway streets in the community. His first biggest fear was being shut down after his first opening for disturbing the peace. Also, as the building owner, he has a responsibility to his present tenants, one of whom runs a dining restaurant just upstairs over the future nightclub and then the additional level of housing apartments above the restaurant. On top of all this, we were dealing with joining row buildings.

Now we had to put ourselves in the shoes of the building owner who has a great responsibility to all his tenants, neighbors and who, of which would have to lay out a great deal of cash to prep this basement for this nightclub project to go forward. As with many of you, this was my first time taking on such a large responsibility in using airkrete® GREENsulation™ for sound control. The architect would have liked to have seen good sound acoustic reports, but I could not provide these to him.

Using all the structural and building knowledge I have, all I would say is we have a great product and I will do my best when installing. Now just think of all the pressure of pointing fingers at who if this doesn’t work out as hoped. I finally got the OK to move forward with the project.

I want you all to know it was full-blown winter with snow banks three feet high. We removed the pumps from the trailer and set up shop in the basement. The air compressor we left in our trailer and flagged the hose on the sidewalk. We then pumped airkrete® GREENsulation™ into all cavities. The next is history. The time now was here to face all the people with a smile on our faces or to put our head down and shake it with discouragement. Who knows?

We set up a good sound system and gradually started turning the volume up with myself and others upstairs in the first floor restaurant. What to our surprise did we discover, that this process, along with the airkrete® GREENsulation™ foam that Mr. Keene Christopher developed, works so well that we could not even hear a sound through the floor or room area.

Next comes the test with the live Heavy Metal Bands and this was also very remarkable with no unacceptable sounds or vibration. I was advised that a professional acoustic test was performed by the Green Glue Company and a verbal report was passed on to me that they have never seen results as good as these. I hope to someday have this report in my hands to share.

As a further note, on November 8th of this year, I had the opportunity to meet with the nightclub owner. I am pleased to report that he could not say enough about what a wonderful job our product is doing for him. He shared that the acoustics and heating are just unbelievable.

Special thanks go out to Mr. Keene Christopher for his development of airkrete® GREENsulation™ and always being there to lend his knowledge, wisdom and support at all hours of the day. I also would like to acknowledge all my staff for all the hard work put into this project and for achieving such rewarding results.