Noisy flooring flaws exposed by bodged reno

Here’s a story that will bring a smile to the faces of anyone who has ever suffered the thuds and thumps of an upstairs neighbour who has put down a hard floor where carpet used to be.

We referred to this in our podcast last week, but for those of you who neither pod nor can cope with the fractured chat that you get in transcripts, here’s a story about how one over-ambition renovation exposed the sneaky – some might say selfish – previous work that had been driving a neighbour nuts.

And it should serve as a warning to apartment owners and tradies who think by-laws and building controls are hypothetical notions only to be loosely observed, if at all.

The saga starts many years ago with an owner who moved into a high-rise apartment block and immediately renovated, including ripping up carpets and laying down a timber floor.

Some time later, a new owner moved into the apartment downstairs and soon after became concerned about the noise, especially late at night, from the flat above.

This wasn’t occasional bumps and thumps (which you shouldn’t hear anyway); this was bangs and crashes that made the downstairs resident fear for the safety of the people above.

When they realised this was the rule rather than the exception, the downstairs neighbour complained to the building management and got the standard unhelpful responses: they were the only one who had complained; it was happening in the middle of the night so there was no way they could monitor it; it was a dispute between two residents so it had nothing to do with the strata committee.

The last part is a Furphy, by the way.  Anything that has anything to do with common property – like an apartment floor – is a strata committee concern.  And if the committee won’t do anything about it, you can take them, as well as the noisy neighbour, to a tribunal. But that’s another story.

This went on for years and at one point the downstairs neighbour moved out and rented another apartment in the same block, just so they could get a decent night’s sleep.

Then the upstairs neighbour decided to renovate again and that’s when things went seriously pear-shaped.  Something went wrong with the renovation and it seriously damaged common property outside the apartment.

The building manager went to the apartment to investigate and discovered that the renovation in progress was much more extensive that what had been approved by the committee. This serial by-law dodger was hoist on their own petard – or maybe flattened by their own flooring flaws.

The work in progress revealed that in ripping up the carpet and underlay, rather than laying the timber on a thick, noise reducing layer of special insulation, wooden slats had been screwed into the concrete slab and the floorboards had been laid on them.

In effect, the installer had created a giant drum.  Hence the unbearable noise below.

The upshot? We understand the timber flooring has been ripped up, the slats removed and floor is now being relaid with proper insulation underneath. 

Can the strata committee demand that? Absolutely! At the very least, the concrete slab into which the wooden slats had been screwed is common property, not to mention the fact than noise nuisance was covered by the building’s by-laws and strata law

Had the committee that was in power back when this started checked the work that was going on, they would have saved the upstairs neighbour a lot of money and the person downstairs a lot of grief.

And if you are considering putting down tiles or timber in your apartment, be aware that even going by Australian Building Standards is no guarantee that you won’t get into strife if your floor turns out to be noisy.

Because that’s the ultimate criterion; is normal activity unreasonably disturbing the peace and quiet of your downstairs neighbours?

If it is, you could find yourself dragged to a tribunal under by-law breach or nuisance provisions of strata laws and ordered to rip it up or re-lay carpet on top.

As for Australian Building Standards, they were devised at a time when wanting to live in an apartment was seen as deviant behaviour and you deserved whatever disturbance you got.

Much more reliable advice can be found in the Guideline for Apartment and Townhouse Acoustic Rating, published by the Association of Australasian Acoustical Consultants. You can download for free it from its website (aaac.org.au).

Flawed flooring exposed by bodged reno

Flat Chat with Jimmy Thomson

WOF: When a downstairs neighbour complained about thumps, bumps and crashes, no one was listening … until they had to.

Here’s a story that will surely bring a smile to the faces of anyone who has ever suffered the thuds and thumps of an upstairs neighbour who has put down a hard floor where carpet used to be.

And it should serve as a warning to apartment owners who think by-laws and building controls are hypothetical notions only to be loosely observed.

The saga starts many years ago with an owner moved into a high-rise apartment block and immediately renovated, including ripping up carpets and laying down a timber floor.

Some time later, a new owner moved into the apartment downstairs and soon after became concerned about the noise, especially late at night, from the flat above.

This wasn’t occasional bumps and thumps (which you shouldn’t hear anyway); this was bangs and crashes that made the downstairs resident fear for the safety of the people above.

When they realised this was the rule rather than the exception, the downstairs neighbour complained to the building management and got the standard unhelpful responses: they were the only one who had complained; it was happening in the middle of the night so there was no way they could monitor it; it was a dispute between two residents so it had nothing to do with the strata committee.

The last part is a furphy, by the way.  Anything that has anything to do with common property – like an apartment floor – is a strata committee concern.  But that’s another story.

This went on for years and at one point the downstairs neighbour moved out, just so they could get a decent night’s sleep.

Then the upstairs neighbour decided to renovate again and that’s when things went seriously pear-shaped.  Something went wrong with the renovation and it damaged common property outside the apartment.

The building manager went to the apartment to investigate and discovered that the renovation in progress was much more extensive that what had been approved by the committee.

And then there was the timber floor.  The work in progress revealed that, rather than laying the timber on a thick, noise reducing layer of special insulation, wooden slats had been screwed into the concrete slab and the floorboards had been laid on them.

In effect, the installer had created a giant drum.  Hence the unbearable noise below.

The upshot? We understand the flooring has been ripped up and is now being relaid with proper insulation underneath. 

Had the committee that was in power back when this started checked the work that was going on, they would have saved the upstairs neighbour a lot of money and the person downstairs a lot of grief.

And if you are considering putting down tiles or timber in your apartment, be aware that even going by Australian Building Standards is no guarantee that you won’t get into strife if your floor turns out to be noisy.

Because that’s the ultimate criterion – is normal activity unreasonably disturbing the peace and quiet of your downstairs neighbours?

If it is, you could find yourself dragged to a tribunal under by-law breach or nuisance provisions of strata laws and ordered to rip it up or re-lay carpet on top.

As for Australian building standards in the Building Code of Australia, they were devised at a time when wanting to live in an apartment was seen as deviant behaviour and you deserved whatever disturbance you got.

Much more reliable advice can be found in the Guideline for Apartment and Townhouse Acoustic Rating, published by the Association of Australasian Acoustical Consultants. You can download for free it from its website (aaac.org.au).

An edited version of this first appeared online in the Australian Financial Review.