Amtico alternatives?

Chickenman1108

Hi all,

I'm currently in the process of buying a new flat from Barratts. It doesnt come with any flooring and they've told me that if I dont carpet the whole flat then I would need to use Amtico flooring instead - apparently to limit any noise to my downstairs neighbours. Ideally I'd only really like carpet in the bedroom, but I'm willing to also carpet the living room if it makes a significant different to the price. But obviously I would not want areas such as the kitchen/bathroom carpeted.

I know Amtico is very expensive and I wouldn't have thought they can actually specify exactly which brands I have to have fitted in my own home?

Whilst I would be looking at spending a decent amount of money on flooring, I don't know that I can stretch to Amtico prices and I don't like the idea of being restricted to just one brand. Obviously I do also understand the soundproofing issue within blocks of flats, so I appreciate that cheap laminate (for example) wouldn't be appropriate.

Does anyone know if they can actually enforce this? I would've thought that, whilst they can insist on certain TYPES of flooring, I don't think I should be limited to just Amtico?

I am due to meet with them again next week and I'd like to be able to put forward some alternatives. I've read about Karndean (and the various pros and cons of both Karndean and Amtico). Does anyone else know any other similar (but possibly more affordable) alternatives?
Are there other flooring options provide equally as good sound insulation as Amtico (or other luxury vinyls)?
I'd like to at least sound like I know what I'm talking about when I see them and hope that they will agree to an alternative.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Doozergirl

Polyflor or mFLOR. Both perfectly good and a lot cheaper.

Marktheshark

A vinyl such as Tarkett Texstar has around 8x the noise suppression of Amtico .
It has a textile backing and is contract quality as opposed to domestic grade.
What I suspect is someone is on the kickback from an Amtico installer, it is certainly not a noise suppression type of flooring.
It is also very expensive for the quality, which is at best, domestic grade.

Texstar is about £13 a m2 plus fitting and comes in 2,3,4 and 5m widths.

Ask them to put in writing the noise suppression level they require, watch their faces drop.

J_B

We have an ongoing building project of apartments in N Wales and have to comply with Building Regs on sound insulation between apartments.

After lots of investigation (Mrs B even joined http://www.flooringadviceforum.com/ ) we settled on Polyflor .. BUT sadly, long story short, they wouldn't guarantee their LVT when put on top of the underlay that BR required.
Back to the drawing board and we have ended up with http://www.lifestyle-floors.co.uk/home which seems to tick all the boxed.

Good luck!