Mass loaded vinyl under carpet install#

And in fact, your floor could be much heavier than that, and thus need even more mass just to get that small amount of TL. two layers of 1/4' MLV, and a layer of 1/8' MLV. To improve this by a mere 6 db, you'd need to add 4 to 5 pounds per square foot. This equates to around 4 to 5 pounds per square foot of mass. Let's say in the worst case, you have a simple wood floor, and below that a single layer of drywall. To get just 6 dB of TL, you need to DOUBLE the total mass of the entire floor, including the ceiling below. Laying down some MLV on your floor isn't even going to give you 6 dB of TL. If you had an air cleaner that brought the ambient noise up 6 dB, you'd have the same effect as if you improved the transmission loss by 6 dB. Transmission Loss is not relative to the loudness of the source sound - that is, 6dB of TL is 6 dB of TL - the question is, how much TL do you need to get the source noise more than 40 dB lower than the ambient noise in your room. We are trying to find out which strategy or combination of strategies would be the most effective. We've had a couple of suggestions: lay the new tongue and groove oak floor on top of a sandwich of two pieces of 7/16 plywood with Green Glue between them, with an underlaying acoustical mat or mass loaded vinyl glued down on top of the pine floors and then GG on top of the MLV and plywood screwed down on top of that and then lay the floorboards. We hope that this alone to be of some help regarding the noise from downstairs. We want to lay a plywood subfloor on top of the old floor and to some extent level it and then new 3/4 oak floors on top. There are many gaps between the boards, and many sections are warped. The original planked subfloor is still there and the current finished flooring is pine tongue and groove in poor condition. The neighbors are not particularly loud, but our floors are in very poor condition and ordinary noise just comes through. I just joined this excellent, informative forum, and I posted this question in another section, but it sounds like this is just the right spot for it, so here it is: Originally Posted by zina /forum/post/18430253 However, you need to consider that much of the sound transmission is NOT through the floor, but flanking, thought the walls - the structure borne sound from below radiates not only through the floor, but your walls as well.Ĭonsider applying greenglue and a layer of drywall over your walls as well. _ GREEN GLUE (3 tubes per 4x8 sheet of MDF) MLV has its place - but constrained in the floor is not one of them.ĮASY: Place a layers of QuietWood on the existing floor, then your new wood flooring.īut Cheaper and probably more effective than quietwood: Use green glue over the existing hard floor, then a layer of 5/8' MDF, then Acoustitech underlayment, then your new wood floor. It is substantially more costly than other solutions. Plywood: No - use MDF instead - same cost, but MDF is more dense, and is better at assisting in transmission loss. We are trying to find out which strategy or combination of strategies would be the most effective.Īny and all feedback, insights or suggestions would be very much appreciated! We’ve had a couple of suggestions: lay the new tongue and groove oak floor on top of a sandwich of two pieces of 7/16” plywood with Green Glue between them, with an underlaying acoustical mat or mass loaded vinyl glued down on top of the pine floors and then GG on top of the MLV and plywood screwed down on top of that and then lay the floorboards. We want to lay a plywood subfloor on top of the old floor and to some extent level it and then new 3/4” oak floors on top. The issue we want to address is airborne noise coming in from the downstairs neighbors - conversation, television and music.

Mass loaded vinyl under carpet install#

We live in a small co-op in an old walk-up apartment building in New York - about 100 years old - and are going to install new hardwood floors over our old wood floors.

I just joined this excellent, informative forum, and I posted this question in another section, but it sounds like this is just the right spot for it, so here it is: