Answering listeners’ strata queries on ABC radio the other day, someone wanted to know if they could pass a by-law that laid out the requirements for insulation for someone who wanted to install hard flooring where carpet used to be.

My answer was yes, provided it was reasonable, but explained that you don’t really need it since the true arbiter of what people can and can’t put on their floors is the amount of sound the flooring allows to transmit from one apartment to the one below (usually).

In short, I said, the Tribunal (NCAT) will rarely if ever tell owners what they must put on their floors, but it will order owners to cover their floors to reduce noise transmission to an acceptable level.

The very next day, I received a notice of Bannerman Lawyers latest newsletter which details what happened when a new owner ripped up the carpet in an old flat, polished the timber floor and began driving their downstairs neighbours nuts.

The reason given for lifting the carpet was that one of their kids was allergic to dust mites – that hoary old chestnut.  When they were told to cut down the noise transmission through their floor, they laid a large Persian rug (dust mite-free, presumably). It made little difference to the noise nuisance

What happened next was that acoustic engineers were brought in and they found that the noise insulation of the timber floor was less than two-stars level, rather than the four-star sound blocking that the Association of Australasian Acoustical Consultants (AAAC) considers a minimum.

“Remedial orders were made by the tribunal (NCAT) that the respondent was to either treat or replace the floors in a manner that the floors achieve a 4-star rating under the AAAC Guideline for Apartment and Townhouse Acoustic Rating,” says the article on the Bannermans website.

One interesting side-issue here is that NCAT is clearly now accepting the AAAC guidelines as the gold standard, even though it is not part of legislation. You can read the Bannermans report of the NCAT hearing HERE and download the AAAC guide to acoustic rating for apartments HERE.

And if you want to hear me, JimmyT, chatting with Mark Humphries (standing in for James O’Loghlin) and answering listeners’ questions on ABC radio Sydney, click on this link and whiz forward one hour. I do this every two weeks on Wednesdays and it opens up a world of strata pain.