Upgrading Existing Party Floors to Pass Sound Testing
APT sound testing has undertaken many thousands of sound tests on conversion projects and in our experience a high percentage of projects fail precompletion sound testing if no acoustic upgrades have been undertaken to the existing party floors.
If an existing floor construction has not been touched it usually consists of 175-200mm joists, with 22mm floorboards to the top of the joists and either one layer of plasterboard or lather and plaster below the joists. When the exiting construction is tested it usually achieves 30-35dB for airborne sound and 70dB for Impact Sound – unfortunately these figures fall far short of the required 43dB & 64dB as stipulated in Building Regulations Part E.
As sound levels double every approx. 10dB, if you fail by 10dB the sound travelling across the party floor from your property to your neighbour’s property will be twice as loud as the maximum allowed by Building Regulations Part E, this often leads to complaints and neighbour disputes.
How to Reduce Airborne and Impact Sound Transmission through Party Floors
To reduce airborne and impact sound transmission through the party floor, you usually need to add mass, isolation and absorption to the floor construction. This can be as simple as adding an acoustic solution above and below the joists. Above the joists extra floor board with an acoustic resilient layer, in between the joists add 100mm AW60 acoustic batt and below the joists add resilient bars with two layers of soundboard. This is a simple cost effective solution whilst still providing the required mass, isolation and absorption to pass the precompletion sound testing.
This type of solution should add should improve your sound test results by approx. 10db -15dB depending on the existing site conditions and quality of the installation, and should lead to much better internal sound levels within your property.
Our team of experienced sound test engineers are dedicated to giving our customers the best quality acoustic design advice to help clients achieve better sound insulation on their properties.
If you would like more information in regards our acoustic design service or sound testing service sound testing, please contact us at: info@aptsoundtesting.co.uk or call Darren Direct on 07775623464.
Alternately, if you would like more information on how to prepare for your sound testing please download our sound test checklist.