Sound Proofing Help for Separating Floors
Loud noise is always a problem that can be heard through floors of flats and houses and is always more of a nuisance when there is no background noise to help mask it within your own home. This is particularly evident at night when you may be in your bedroom and can clearly hear noise from next door. The noises may not be loud and you may not notice them during the day but they can be disturbing at night. However, normal everyday noises such as normal speech, normal television/radio volumes should not be heard during the daytime and the current regulations for noise control through separating floors have been introduced to stop this.
If you are experiencing any of the above noise problems, we can offer sound insulating materials that will offer a simple solution. Before remedial procedures are undertaken, it needs to be determined what type of noise is being experienced. Is it airborne or impact? Airborne noise is the type emitted by speech or music. Impact noise is as it suggests, noise created by footfalls, doors closing and so on. Impact noise is usually structural borne sound that can travel up and through walls or directly through floors whereas airborne sound simply penetrates any dividing structure.
Sound Insulating Floating wooden Floors
To address impact noise through a floor, a floating floor would normally be installed and is what is required for all newly built and converted flats today. Before we go on to talk about installing a floating floor, we should have a look at the existing floor construction. In timber suspended floors squeaking floorboards are always an annoying problem and are usually easy to deal with. Squeaking floors are caused by movement of the floorboards rubbing against each other or against the joists on which they are fitted. There can be several reasons for this, including warping of the boards. The more common reason is due to inefficient fixings holding the boards down.
These are usually nails that have worked loose and can be addressed by installing strategically placed screws to tighten the boards so they no longer squeak when walked over. If it is at all possible, it is always worth lifting any existing flooring to install our Acoustic Mineral Wool or better still our Acoustic Quilt between the joists. This will give an immediate 2-4dB improvement in both airborne and impact sound before any other work is carried out.
The floor can then be replaced using screws to ensure it is secure and does not squeak in the future. With square edged floorboards, noise leakage through the joints can be a problem. A more traditional way to address this is to cover the floor with hardboard which has to be glued and screwed, a very time consuming exercise.
An easier and more effective solution is to use our Soundproofing Mat SBM5 which is a mineral loaded deadsheet that is as effective as using lead. SBM5 is simply loose laid across the floor, butt jointed wall to wall. For a more permanent solution, the mats can be glued down using our special adhesive. When the base floor has been sorted, a floating floor can be installed over the top. Our 10mm thick recycled resilient insulation Acousticel R10 is loose laid over the SBM5 with the joints of the insulation abutted to each other and installed wall to wall.
A t&g floor of minimum 18mm thickness can then be installed with the joints glued and with a 5mm gap between the floating floor and the surrounding walls. This gap should be sealed with our Flexible Acoustic Sealant. For a greater improvement in sound loss, our high density 19mm tongued and grooved QuietBoard acoustic flooring can be used for the floating floor layer instead.
The above system will not only improve impact noise but will also give a significant airborne noise reduction. Installation of the above will raise the height of the floor by approx. 31mm so it will be necessary to adjust any doors that open across the new floor.
Other Solutions including carpet
Sometimes it is not possible to install a floating floor system so other measures have to be considered. It is always worthwhile installing our Acoustic Quilt between the joists and we have already dealt with this so we will now concentrate on insulation directly off the existing floor. The simplest way to reduce impact noise is to replace your carpet underlay with our specially developed A10 Acoustic Underlay. This will substantially reduce previously heard impact noise by your neighbours below.
If airborne noise is a problem, the simplest way to reduce this is to install three layers of our SBM5 Soundproofing Mat onto the floor with the joints of each layer overlapping the layer beneath. These mats should be glued down and as each mat is nominally 2mm thick, the increase in floor height will only be about 6mm. An alternative is to substitute any carpet underlay with our QuietFloor acoustic underlay which will reduce both impact and airborne noise. If QuietFloor is used in conjunction with the SBM5 Soundproofing Mat, the noise reduction achieved will be enhanced. Before installing QuietFloor , it is always a good idea to glue down a layer of SBM5 first to seal the joints of the existing floor.
Laminate and Hardwood Floors
Laminate and bare floors always create more noise than a carpeted floor for obvious reasons and should be avoided if at all possible. However, if a hard floor surface of any kind is required, it is best installed as a floating floor as already described above. With laminate floors, we would advise using our Acoustic Laminate Underlay
Lino flooring
A lino floor is very thin and contributes nothing to sound reduction. We have produced a product called (Syl) Linoroll - 5 which is ideal to reduce impact sound under a Lino. We would suggest using Acoustic Quilt or Mineral Wool in the cavity space and Soundproofing Mat on top of the floor before laying the Linoroll.