Nothing is worse than spending time in your own home or apartment and being constantly aware of unwanted noises coming from above. Whether it's children running around, moving furniture, screaming, music, or noise from the television, this is further compounded by the popularity of hard floor finishes such as laminate, tile and hardwood floors in our homes, which don't absorb noise like carpets do. Fortunately, there are soundproofing solutions available to help reduce the amount of noise that can be heard in your home. Soundproof base layers are particularly suitable for reducing impact sound, so if you're looking to also reduce airborne noise, we recommend visiting our soundproofing range.
The GenieMat RST base has proven to be an excellent option for those looking to install laminate floors and dampen the noise that would otherwise be heard by the neighbors below. It's an incredibly versatile mat that can be used to insulate a concrete subfloor, effectively reducing the amount of impact sound produced. In addition to its excellent soundproofing capabilities, the GenieMat RST base is also an incredibly cost-effective option compared to other impact mats on the market. Hard floor finishes including laminate, engineering and tile must use an elastic layer between soundproofing and floor finishing.
We recommend a sheet material such as a layer or an interlocking MDF. The layers are fixed with a floor-friendly adhesive such as Isobond floor adhesive. To prevent possible flanking sound from being transmitted from the floor to the walls, insulate the floor with insulating tape attached to the wall. Two of our bases offer drum noise isolation: the Quickstep Unisound Combiflor (19 dB) and the Quickstep Silent Walk (17 dB).
They can be used with laminate or engineering floors and are ideal for sneaking around for a midnight snack. Meanwhile, we have a wide selection of Transit sound-insulated bottom layers which is very useful to install above the ground floor and can give you peace of mind if you live in an apartment. These lower layers will mitigate any foot tapping. If you want to know how much sound the base will absorb, we've included traffic sound reduction with each product in the list below. When choosing new types of flooring, whether they are laminate, vinyl, carpet or any other type, soundproofing is often not the first thing that comes to mind.
There is no simple answer to this as the quality of the original carpet, its base and subfloor influence the performance of the original carpet floor. Hush Mat 15 is at the core of our range of fully tested Hush solutions providing a specification for achieving soundproofing a separator floor with confidence. Therefore when installing a new laminate floor on your property it is essential to invest in a suitable subfloor. Due to the nature of how small and fragile tiles can be, you should not place them on soft padded bases (as are acoustic bases) as this increases the chance of them cracking and breaking. You could be forgiven for not realizing that there are a lot of soundproofed floor base products available. By absorbing vibrations created when sound passes through floors it is an effective soundproofing solution for both residential and commercial environments. We always recommend placing a minimum of 6 mm hardboard layer on the soundproof base before placing the laminate or vinyl to provide a flat and stable base.
Let us help you choose the right base layer ensuring comfort, noise reduction and greater durability for your new floor. For all other soundproof mats they must be placed under the floor heating due to their mass and material from which they are made. Base layers for carpets although they can be said to offer soundproofing properties do not work anywhere near the level offered by base layers and specific soundproofing mats. You can place an engineered wood floor directly over these two soundproof base products using a flanking perimeter band around the edge of the room to prevent it from hitting any of the walls. The rubber base is composed of a soft rubber layer placed between subfloor and floor material. In conclusion, investing in a suitable soundproof underlay for your laminate flooring is essential if you want to reduce noise levels in your home or office space.
There are many different options available on the market today that offer varying levels of noise reduction depending on your needs and budget.
