Is Acoustic Underlay effective?

saving_not_shopping

Hi all!

I'm ground floor, my noisy neighbours are 1st floor, of a Victorian town house converted into flats in the 70s. They are proposing acoustic underlay underneath bamboo flooring - is this effective sound insulation or should I put my foot down and insist on carpeting but make enemies as neighbours?

help please!?

Background:
I have lived in my lovely new flat since December however I have also had to completely change my daily routine to fit around my very loud young family upstairs!

Currently they have a couple of rugs down on old floorboards (They're first floor, I'm ground) and we can hear everything except detail of conversations. There are two small children and when they drop their toys/run across floors/open drawers it seems to reverberate around my whole flat and my paying flatmate's room is below their living room.

They are otherwise lovely people and so I have been very nervous about bringing up the subject but having spent the bank holiday with daily 6am wake ups I sent a very toned down email asking their plans.

They sent a very apologetic reply saying that they plan to put down acoustic underlay and bamboo flooring.

iamcornholio

It really depends on the type and method of intallation of the "underlay"

If this is just common underlay (marketed as acoustic or not), then don't expect much. If it is a proper floating floor barrier of dense material, then it may help

In any case, the sound absorbtion effects will probably be more than offset by the fact that wood flooring is the worst thing to have in terms of noise transmission. The noise is bouncing around the room and not being absorbed as with carpet

leveller2911

I have used "Acoustilay" which is a layer of sound deadening foam between 2 layers of lead impregnated rubber.

You use it as an underlay and I have to say its excellant.I used it in a top end B&B.I would say the sound reduction was about 85%.The downside is that its very heavy approx 15kg for a 1200mm x 1200mm square.I had to fit 68 of them so needed a structural engineer to give me the ok..

You can use it as a carpet underlay or floating floor.

saving_not_shopping

Thank you very much for these. I finally built up the courage to chat to them and have agreed to go with a floating floor underlay. I'll post feedback on the effectiveness.