Soundproofing under carpet?

MichaelR

Hello,

I have a children's bedroom over a home office room. I'd like some soundproofing, both ways. In the morning/day, the children can jump etc, and I'd like to minimize impact on home office work; in the night, there can be some talking on the phone in the home office, and I don't want to wake up the kids.

New carpet is needed anyway. The floor base is wooden.

The carpet store is ready to install the carpet with thick underlay, I think made of foam, that claims to reduce noise significantly, among other things. Separately, soundproofing suppliers offer thinner underfloor materials based on recycled rubber, like this one: http://www.soundinsulation.ie/floor-soundproofing/17-syl-for-laminate-and-wooden-floors.html

What should I pick? Just the foam underlay, going for the top notch (11 mm) option? Just the rubber? Rubber on the floor, form on top of it, then the carpet?

The foam-only option is easiest as the store will do very cheap installation, while I'd have to roll out the rubber myself. But of course I'm much more interested in the results.

DivingDuck

You could always ask if the carpet suppliers would be willing to install the rubber underneath before laying the foam underlay for a small additional fee.

Considering they're already coming out and they're going to have to cut both the carpet and the underlay, presumably they have the tools and expertise and it shouldn't take a huge amount of additional time?

MichaelR

Thanks, good point and I will ask them, but would carpet over foam over rubber actually work better?

DivingDuck

Couldn't say for sure, if I'm being honest. The rubber is supposed to be pretty decent for impact-related insulation, so it couldn't hurt for the jumping/dropping type noises emanating from the kids, but I don't think it would do much to prevent them from being bothered by your phonecalls, etc.

Hopefully others can chime in with more knowledge, though.