How flooring affects the acoustics in your home

If you’re after a whisper quiet home, you’ll need to consider its acoustics.

Many people don’t think about how the type of flooring they choose impacts sound in their home – and find out too late that certain rooms are noisier than they wanted.

Flooring materials can greatly influence how sound is reflected, absorbed, and transmitted within rooms, so getting educated early is paramount.

The Room

The size of a room, its shape, and what’s inside it all play a part in how sound travels.

Have you ever noticed how a big, tiled room with a high ceiling, no rugs and little furniture will be very noisy when lots of conversation is taking place?  With not much to absorb the sound, reverberation – where sound appears to bounce around – can be an issue in larger rooms, causing them to sound uncomfortably echoey or boomy. Sound can also be amplified in bigger spaces.

A room’s shape can also change how sound waves move within it, impacting how they reflect and resonate.

Another obvious – but perhaps overlooked – aspect of how noisy a room will be is floor impact noise. This describes how noisy a surface is when it’s walked on with shoes or when things are dropped on it.

Furniture and furnishings may also influence acoustics, as they can absorb sound, too.

Carpet

When you want serenity, carpet is often the perfect selection because it’s the best flooring material for absorbing sound waves (which it does thanks to its individual fibres and pile structure). Carpet also reduces reverberation.

Carpet underlay can further slash noise. At Parrys, our underlays feature acoustic ratings but, generally, the thicker your carpet or underlay is, the more sound it will uptake.

Vinyl

When quiet is required and carpet isn’t an option, other flooring types can still stack up.

Of all the hard flooring materials, elegant modern vinyl – sheet vinyl, vinyl plank and luxury vinyl plank – offers superior sound reduction and is generally quiet to walk on.

If you’re looking for better acoustic reduction properties, opt for luxury vinyl planks as they have a thicker wear layer. 

Engineered timber

Being heavier, engineered timber – also referred to as engineered hardwood flooring – is a superior acoustic choice.

This type of flooring is made up of a number of layers, therefore soaking up sound effectively.

It’s also generally considered to be less noisy than traditional timber floors when walked on.

Ready to invest in fresh, quiet flooring?

Head into a Parrys store now.

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