Acoustic Treatment of Hardwood floor finishes in flats

When renovating flats, it is common for tenants and landlords to want to install wooden floors, they have many advantages over carpets and underlay:

i)    Easy to clean

ii)    Hardwearing

iii)    Contemporary in look

iv)    Wide range of finishes to suit all budgets.

Unfortunately, hard floor finishes including tiles all have a major drawback in that they will decrease the Airborne and Impact Noise performance of a given floor structure when compared against carpets and underlay. Indeed many lease agreements nowadays restrict the installation of wood floors in flats, whilst many managing agents will only allow installation of wood flooring if it can be proven that the proposer has taken suitable precautions to reduce the likely hood of noise issues.

Although there is no direct legislation regarding the installation of hard wood flooring, Approved Document E is often incorrectly referred to as it is probably the closest legislation to the subject, we have the expertise to be able to negotiate with the managing agents on your behalf over the most appropriate acoustic treatment. The key to this acoustic treatment is in identifying the type of floor construction that exists between the 2 flats, different floor constructions require different types of treatment, one size doesn’t fit all!.

There are hundreds of different types of Acoustic floating floor systems, however many of them are not suitable for wood floors, for example acoustic mats would be too soft, meaning that the wood floor would appear to flex under load, so mats such as Acoustilay 15 need to be over laid with another board adding further costs. Acoustic Batten systems would raise the floor up too much meaning that doors would then be too short. Many cheap chipboard floating floors such as Deck 18 or SoundFloor 28 would not have enough mass to help reduce the noise transfer.

Sound Solution Consultants Ltd provide an acoustic design service specifically for flat owners and managing agents alike, we would typically provide a technical design, specific to the property in question, giving both owner and managing agent the confidence, that things are being done correctly, we can also save the client money by identifying the exact methodology and products suitable for the situation rather than over engineering of the solution or even worse, incorrect installation.

Incorrect fitting of acoustic floor systems can not only render the acoustic floor as useless, it could also exaggerate Impact Noise problems to the extent that noise problems could even be worse than if the acoustic flooring had not been laid at all.

Our consultancy service would include:

1.    Site visit

2.    Inspection of existing building construction

3.    Liaising with managing agents if required.

4.    Full detailed report, outlining issues and proposed constructions.

5.    System specification including suggesting suitable products.

6.    Further site visit during installation to check installation methods.

Sound Solution Consultants Ltd can also:

Supply all types of Acoustic Flooring at discounted rates.

Supply all types of insulation and plasterboard at discounted rates.

Carry out Sound Insulation testing to Approved Document E Standards.

See below for a typical Engineered Floor Acoustic Treatment.

Re: Engineered Floor Fitting Instructions

1.    Re-plaster walls down to chipboard flooring and plug all large holes with mineral wool

2.    Apply Isolation tape around bottom edge of wall (re-plaster wall edge if required).

3.    Lay Acoustic Flooring boards up to Isolation tape.

4.    Stagger boards brick work fashion and glue edges.

5.    Cover whole room and fill in gaps with off cuts of boards.

6.    Leave 5mm gap around pipes and seal with mastic.

7.    Overlay 3mm Foam onto 28mm Floating Floor and leave 100mm at each end of room

8.    Fit Engineered Flooring as per manufacturers instructions

9.    Fold 3mm foam onto Flooring and fix skirting into WALL ONLY Not through into floor

10.    Floor must end up water tight.!!

DO NOT NAIL OR SCREW THROUGH THESE BOARDS INTO ACOUSTIC FLOOR

From the above diagram you can see that both the acoustic floor and the engineered floor are separated from the wall by an isolation tape (shown in blue), there should also be a 2mm foam layer between the Acoustic floor and the engineered flooring, this same foam underlay should be returned around onto the engineered floor so that the skirting board can be fitted onto it. The skirting board must not come in contact with the engineered flooring.

Why not call us now to arrange a visit that could save you hundreds of pounds.!