Sound Control Principles for Hardwood Floors

Construction codes vary widely depending on the type of building or construction you’re undertaking on your property. Each local jurisdiction has their own codes and ordinances to abide by and you should check into all of these before you begin remodeling, even when you’re just installing hardwood floors into your home.

Although building codes and permit requirements vary, everyone has to abide by the Uniform Building Code (UBC) and the BOCA National Building Code. Within these building codes are structural definitions for sound control barriers, practices and sound transmission classes that must be adhered to. Some local or neighborhood ordinances may be stricter than what these building codes require.

That National Wood Floor Association Installation Guidelines make reference to the fact that there are several different types of sound control systems that can be installed underneath the hardwood floor to reduce air-borne noises from travelling to other rooms of the house. The guidelines recommend that regardless of the different sound barrier or sound control devices you might opt to have installed, that you vigorously compare testing data from the manufacturers before you purchase it. Testing data may not be accurate or complete if the results do not indicate which type of flooring was in the testing module. Carpet, vinyl, wood and laminate all have different effects on testing quality. 

Regardless of which sound control device or method you choose, remember to minimize noise transference by avoiding any points of contact where noise can be easily transferred from one place to the next. For example, anything that makes noise will emit sound waves into anything surrounding it, including the air. Our ears pick up these vibrations and our brains turn these vibrations in to recognizable sounds.

Those same vibrations continue to travel through anything it touches and anything an object touches. For example, if you turn on your water facet, you can hear water running through the pipes under the sink. If you go into another room of your home, you may also hear water going through the different areas of pipe. This is because the pipe inside the walls are physically attached and touching the walls at some point of travel. The sound vibrations travel through the piping, through the joists or hinges and finally through the wall itself back into the air where we can hear it again.

If you apply this concept to your hardwood flooring installation, it makes sense to not allow the hardwood floor to touch the bottoms of adjoining walls and to keep a slight distance between the moldings and floor where applicable. This will allow proper room for expansion and shrinkage with normal humidity and seasonal changes. If you have to nail in the floor, apply only as many nails as necessary and don’t allow the nails to puncture the sound control materials otherwise it makes the material less effective, defeating the point.