Acoustic separating floors
Separating floors in flats and conversions have to pass — either as a Robust Detail, or by pre-completion testing on the day. Both routes are unforgiving of a build-up that was changed on site without anyone checking what it did to the sound.
The build-up is the whole job
An acoustic floor is a stack: resilient layer, isolation at the perimeter, the right mass in the right order. Miss the perimeter strip, bridge it with a fixing, or swap a layer for whatever turned up on the wagon, and a floor that was designed to pass will fail a test that costs a great deal more to put right than to do properly. We build them to the detail as drawn, and we tell you when something on site has compromised it.
Where they are needed
- Flats and apartments — Approved Document E
- Conversions, where the existing structure sets what is achievable
- Student accommodation and HMOs
- Hotels and anywhere a bedroom sits over a room in use
Questions we get asked
Robust Details or pre-completion testing?
Robust Details avoids testing but you must build the detail exactly as registered — no substitutions. Pre-completion testing gives more freedom in the build-up but you find out on the day whether it passes. Which is better depends on how much control you have over what happens on site.
What usually makes one fail?
A bridge. A fixing through the resilient layer, a perimeter strip missed or squashed, a service penetration filled solid. The stack itself is rarely the problem — the workmanship around its edges is.
Can you do it in a conversion?
Often, but the existing structure sets the limit. On a timber floor in an old building there is only so much that can be achieved without taking it back further than the client wants to go, and it is better to know that before the acoustician does.
Send the acoustic detail
If there is a specification or a Robust Detail reference, send it. If there is not, tell us what is above and below and we will tell you what the floor needs.
Or ring 01636 616388.
Related
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A floor that is still giving off moisture will destroy whatever is stuck to it.
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