Every year at the strata AGM, there is a motion to amend the bylaws to allow owners to replace carpets with cork, lino, vinyl, or hardwood floors. It is regularly defeated, as people worry about sound between the units increasing if the carpeting is replaced. It is a 4-story wooden building.
Proponents of other flooring options insist that soundproofing underlays have improved drastically since the bylaws were written 25 years ago. Anyone here have experience/expertise/WAG on this issue?
Thanks
The noise level will probably go up somewhat, but it won’t be significant. Some people just can’t deal with, are afraid of, change. Why not let someone try it and measure the sound difference from an adjacent unit.
I thought cork adsorbed sound?
Cork floors are somewhat quiet compared to other hard surfaces but nowhere near as quiet as carpet. We have two stories in our house, upstairs is mostly hardwood with cork in the kitchen. When I am downstairs I hear my husband walking around, and I can tell the difference between the two, but I can certainly still hear him.
I’ve seen on TV about sound insulation between floors, put in during remodeling or new construction, but I’m not clear what soundproofing underlays would be like. I’d be interested too in reading about any experience with those.
By the way, I am utterly sympathetic to both sides here. I hate carpet on my own floors, but I hate anything else for the upstairs neighbor (if I had one). In one apartment I lived in, we had the dancing elephants upstairs. I swore they work jackboots just to be louder.
Are cork floors a common thing? With but ONE exception (before reading this thread), I have never seen or even heard of such a thing – and that one exception was the home I lived in as a child.
It was a single-story ranch-style single-family home in the burbs, so no issues of neighbors above or below. The most memorable feature of cork floors that I recall is that they did not get very cold, even in winter, to walk around on in bare feet.
I once lived in an apartment which had been converted from an old church some time in the 90s, with carpet installed in all apartments, but no additional sound-proofing between floors. We had many complaints from our neighbours downstairs about noise, simply from us walking around. When we had the place renovated, we had hard floors installed, fitted as floating floors on a sound-proof underlay. The complaints stopped.
Update! This year, the AGM passed a resolution allowing cork floors, with standards set for underlay, etc. We’re interested. Any tips/warnings/stories on selecting, buying, installing, etc.? Thanks.