Hard Surface Flooring on Ground Levels

Nixie,

What you say is entirely logical, and a couple of years ago we in fact considered some degree of differentiation in the application of our Plan's Special By-Law (floating floors) to ground floor Units.

That differentiation was proven flawed after one “test case” in an E/C Member's Unit, because even though the floating floor involved was in a living area that didn't adjoin a common wall (with another Unit), the noise of young children moving about on that floor DID travel to adjoining Units.

OK – maybe you don't have young children, or if you do, you may properly manage their movements about on the floating floor, but that won't always be the case. Sooner or later you'll sell or tenant your Unit, and suddenly that noise will become a problem!

All things considered, the marginal costs of compliance with any reasonable standard for sound-proofing the hard-surface flooring in your ground floor Unit is very small in the context of the whole job cost.

Nixie,

I don’t know what your Scheme’s Special By-Law requires with regard to hard-surface flooring, but it should be no more prescriptive than to specify the achievement of a minimum Ln,w+C1 (the Australian equivalent of the US Impact Test) that at least complies with the Building Codes of Australia standard for multi-storey buildings.

Our Plan takes the view that how Proprietors propose to meet our minimum standard of “50” is a matter between them and their installers, and thus far and with only one exception, everyone’s done exactly what you and your ground floor neighbour did by using “some of the best available sound cushioning underlay” and  ‘the best available acoustic underlay”; there are ample products available.

Apart from that “test case” where the Proprietor (our then E/C Chairman and Franchisee of a local carpet outlet) had agreed to rectify any problems if they arose, we’ve only had that single problem in five authorised installations, where the purchaser of a Unit received an allowance at Settlement to cover her costs to take-up an unauthorised floating floor, which as it eventuated had no acoustic underlay at all.

So I don’t really see what your issue is with regard to compliance with relevant By-Laws, because as I see it both you and your ground floor neighbour have complied (and in your case it appears that you would have notwithstanding any requirement to do so), and that’'s precisely why neither of you have experienced any subsequent noise complaints. 

I think it's fair to say the acoustics of every building are different which is one of the reasons it's unwise to create prescriptive by-laws that either don't sufficiently address the issues of noise or, alternatively, are so draconian that they could, feasibly, be challenged at the CTTT or in court.

The only real test is whether the occupants of one unit disturb the occupants of another unit because of their floor covering and the way they behave in the apartment.

One of the isses with hard flooring is that they reflect noise into the air (if you want to sse this at its worst, go to a busy cafe with concrete floors and low ceilings and try to have a conversation). Some of noise, obviously, will be transferred through walls, ceilings and pipes (which is why some buildings ban you from playing your radio in the bathroom – true!).

There is also a question of indirectly transmitted noise where, theoretically, vibrations from a floor can be transmitted via a wall to another wall above or below.  And until someone does a study on the transmission of noise via the structure of a building, all of this will remain a mystery.

Plainly and simply, nothing absorbs noise like carpet but that shouldn't mean that we all have to re-rug our floors.  However, we shouldn't expect our neighbours to put up with excessive noise because we want a trendier or easier to clean floor.

If I were putting together a by-law on flooring, it would say that you can put down whatever you like provided you sign a contract agreeing to rip it back up again if it proves to be a nuisance to other owners (by any reasonable measure). 

Put the responsibility back on the renovater to either get it right first time or keep fixing it until it is right (with some guidance on what has been shown to be effective and warnings about how cheap flooring with inadequate insulation end up costing more when they have to be replaced).

For ground floor flats with vertical and lateral noise transmission, you might think about installing acoustic walls and ceilings which are often a lot cheaper than you'd think.