Acoustic Flooring Advice - bungalow

doconn

Hi

I'm sure there is someone who has had this issue and I'm having trouble finding a 100% independent person to advise me..

Problem/Issue
I have single-sided deafness which means I can only ever hear the loudest sound in a given environment as I cannot filter out other sounds or white noise. That means any type of tiling/hardwood floors in a room combined with wooden chairs/flooring is very uncomfortable for me if there are more than say, 3 people in said room at any one time. Or indeed hardwood floors in general anywhere is the house would be a non-no as the sound travels from room to room. I also have two very active young boys at home ( 5 & 7):)

To combat this initially, I laid carpet in the hall (impossible to keep clean/unhygienic)and vinyl (tears easily) in the kitchen. I’m now in a position to put down something more permanent but I am concerned about acoustic performance. I know that anecdotally cork has better absorption properties than tiles for example but I want to be sure I choose the right solution based on facts and data and not just my own hunch!

If you are an architect/flooring specialist/sound engineer or just someone who knows their stuff.... what flooring solution would you recommend and where would I get a specs-sheet that would indicate expected levels of sound absorption?

As I said above, independent advice is hard to come by as every service provider (quite naturally) feels their solution would be fine for me so I'm hoping one of you folks can give me a steer

Any help/opinion/direction at all would be great!

Thanks

D

dok_golf

Can't help you but best of luck with this query.

listermint

Without being funny.

Carpet is the number 1 solution for this. as in number 1. But you believe its unhygienic therefore you are removing it from your sphere.

I would advise personally carpet the entire place and get yourself a robot vac.

Anything else and you are looking down a well of bad performance and expense.

imp1

As per listermint, carpet sounds like it is what you need.
For a surface to be absorbent, it needs to be soft, and acoustically transparent, which most carpet is. Short pile 'industrial' carpet is easily cleaned / hoovered, though not as absorbent as longer pile carpet, with an underlay.
Cork is quite a nice acoustic material, though to be used on a floor it needs the surface sealed - normally varnished, and this negates its acoustic absorbency largely.
Not meaning to be telling anyone how to live their life, but have you tried slippers?
If you want I can give you acoustic absorbency coefficients of various flooring materials, but are you sure that is what you need/want.
Adding absorbency throughout the spaces will reduce the reverberation time in these spaces, but that does not seem to be an issue for now.

dball

you could also look into rubber flooring - but most of this might me industrial or commercial - I think Forbo do a range in Deansgrange

doconn

Hello all

Many thanks for your input. I agree that carpet is 100% the best solution but am looking for the next-best option really I suppose.

imp1..........Great point on the cork and it's one I had not thought of. I have seen some NRC (noise reduction co-coefficient) figures but if you had the numbers for vinyl/vinyl tiles/cork/ (forbo stuff too?) etc, it'd be good to see them thanks.
Re slippers:)...unfortunately sound bouncing around a room has many origins and footsteps are the least invasive...often it's not the impact of the activity on the floor itself but more how it deals with other sounds within the room is what usually presents single-sided deaf people with issues. For example, cutlery falling on a wooden table, situated a wooden/marble floor in a busy restaurant is far worse than footsteps on the same floor.



dball...............I will also check out the marmoleum from Forbo (just checked their site) at their Deansgrange showroom..

thanks again

imp1

doconn,
below are a few materials with their typical absorption coefficients in octave bandwidth, 125Hz to 4 kHz
Lino on concrete 0.02, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.04, 0.05
5mm needle felt on concrete 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.15, 0.3, 0.4
15mm thick pile carpet on rubber underlay 0.15, 0.25, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.7
6mm rubber floor tiles 0.05, 0.05, 0.1, 0.1, 0.05, 0.05
Cork floor tiles 14mm 0, 0.05, 0.15, 0.25, 0.25, 0

As you can probably see, the most effective absorber is the thick pile carpet. If you want to stop noise bouncing around, you need to reduce the reverberation, by adding soft absorbent materials. Carpet is very good at this, and you have the added benefit of it being useful to walk on. Wall or ceiling panels also work well, but as a rule of thumb you would need about as much area, as you have on the floor. Might as well make use of the floor and carpet it. A lot cheaper than specialist panels.

Tigger

listermint wrote: »

Without being funny.

Carpet is the number 1 solution for this. as in number 1. But you believe its unhygienic therefore you are removing it from your sphere.

I would advise personally carpet the entire place and get yourself a robot vac.

Anything else and you are looking down a well of bad performance and expense.

I’m a flooring contractor and I agree whole heartedly
Decent carpet and cloud 9 underlay will cost about 35 per yard installed
Use the massive price differential to get the carpet sprayed with that scotch gaurd nano tech stuff and a rob vac

doconn

Great stuff imp1 - I just want to ensure I'm making my decisions on data and fact and not just my hunches..

You have also got me thinking more about noise reverberation improvements and they can probably play a more important role than I had factored in

imp1

Reverberation - or excessive reverberation, does seem to be the problem you have, the current penchant for restaurant design does not help, all polished concrete and bare floors.
You can't exactly do much about it when you are out for something to eat etc., but in your own space, carpet is one of the best materials for controlling the reverb, and it's nice and warm underfoot as well!