Wooden Flooring in Units
Replacing carpet with timber flooring is a popular option for many owners renovating their units but before you embark on this project we recommend you do some homework to ensure your renovations don’t cause unnecessary disruption to your neighbours (particularly the ones below). The adjudicators can order lot owners to replace flooring with carpet or redo the insulation if it can be proved that there is unreasonable noise transference from a lot that has hard floors installed, often at great expense.
Before you go ahead with an installation, we recommend you:
Read your body corporate’s by-laws and see if there are any rules about installation of hard flooring;
- Speak to your installer about the appropriate amount of sound installation under the floor;
- Speak to your neighbor and see what sort of noise currently emanates from your current flooring; and
- If you feel it necessary, have an acoustics engineer perform an inspection and provide you with recommendations (some bodies corporate require this as part of their by-laws).
Once you have had the installation completed be mindful that you could potentially be creating more noise than usual. The body corporate commissioner’s office suggests the following measures to reduce noise transference.
- Floor rugs and carpets, with insulated backing in high traffic areas;
- Felt pads under furniture legs;
- Soft closers on cupboard doors;
- Removing shoes when inside the apartment
- Minimising noisy activities such as keeping volume on electronic devices as low as possible.
– Henry Wheeler