The floor of a home or an apartment is the most used part when it comes to day to day activities in any place. Thus, the highest pressure of wear is a common element on this part – remember all the movements made in the house are right on the floor.
This means that if you do not take care of your floor, the odds of causing all kinds of troubles for your downstairs neighbor are huge. Or it could be the other way around that your neighbor downstairs is becoming too insensitive to your quiet needs by doing everything loud.
Either way, you definitely need to soundproof your apartment. Which should be the reason why learning how to soundproof a floor in an apartment is vital to you.
Soundproofing a floor needs to be done a bit differently though. And the materials used for this task need to be of top-grade quality to withstand the intense wear.
The good news about this is that there are reliable soundproofing materials for the floors. Thus, no need to panic over the same.
So make sure that your apartment floor is soundproofed to avoid disturbing your neighbors for a peaceful co-existence. I will be walking you through the steps of doing this.
Why Do You Need to Soundproof Your Apartment Floor?
Every person has their own reasons best known for them why they want to soundproof their floors. Here are some of the things that would make you take such a measure.
- Improve Your Acoustics
Life in an apartment is always going to be messy. Everything happens fast, loud, and continuously – a typical representation of urban life.
To avoid all these types of noises, soundproofing your floor is a move you can make. This helps you improve your won acoustics so that you can be able to do your stuff in quiet.
- For Privacy Reasons
Nobody wants to expose his or her deep things to the world. That’s why you want to make sure that anything you talk up there remains there, the kind of music you play in your room is not heard by your downstairs neighbor and so on.
- Your Noisy Downstairs Neighbor
Most of the times you want to soundproof your floor because the person right below you has become a nuisance when it comes to noise making. You don’t want to pick a fight with your neighbor and you probably wouldn’t dare ask them to mute.
The best option available becomes to soundproof apartment floor. I am sure even if you won’t achieve the 100% noise reduction, most of the vibrations and echoes and other unnecessary disruptions will be considerably cut down.
- If You Are Noisy Yourself
Possibly, you could be the one perpetuating this noise, or your family – your kids, your pet, TV – all that kind of stuff. Just to make sure you limit complaints, you need to do something on your floor.
Or else these complaints can get you to a volatile stage with your neighbors and you don’t want to be piling enemies in such places. So don’t allow this to happen.
What is the Best Soundproofing Material for Floors?
Before starting on a soundproofing project, you must develop a checklist of the materials you are going to need for the rest of it. At this point, determining the right product to use for your project is a huge decision.
In case you bottle it up, you will still suffer the same problem due to bad material products.
Furthermore, identifying suitable materials is one thing, installing them is another. This is why you need to get the right person, probably a professional to do the job for you in the manner it should be implemented.
Here are some of the common materials you need:
- Acoustic Underlay
- Carpet pads
- Interlocking floor mats – they look like carpet pads
The acoustic underlays is effective vibration dampeners and soundproof agents. They help with reducing the amount of noise that goes through the floor.
You need to place them on the sub-flooring or top of the floor. Here I am talking of materials like UltraSeal Acoustic Underlayment, cork tiles, sound deadening mass loaded vinyl and Floor Muffler wood acoustical underlayment.
The carpet pads are used for soundproof carpeting. Of course, you don’t need other types of materials to be used in this case.
Most of the soundproofing carpets come with dense structures and absorb a lot of sound traveling on the floor. Besides, soundproofing, these carpet pads can be great thermal insulators which are an added advantage for keeping your apartment warm during the cold months.
The other option is the floor mats. Which would still save you a great deal even though they are not very effective at sound blocking.
They help absorb vibrations and muffle (to a certain extent) the sounds of music in your room. They are not heavy-duty so don’t expect much from them.
Here are the Cheap Techniques to Soundproof a Floor in Your Apartment.
I am going to provide you with 7 different ways or methods on how to soundproof a floor cheap. Some of the tasks may require a professional to come and assist but some are just do-it-yourself projects.
Let’s jump in.
1. Bring in a Professional Soundproof Expert
If you don’t have all the time for the DIY projects, the best thing to do is to hire a professional or expert in the soundproofing field. But be sure to pay whatever the person will ask you for work done.
There is no doubt that a professional can work out magic by doing some amazing stuff for great results. He is a professional after all.
Most of the time, these guys focus on permanent projects more than the simple ones. Which may not bode well for you if you are just renting an apartment.
They can also be expensive fellas. Contact them only if you totally cannot handle the project on your own or talk to them early enough about the pricing before they come to start the project.
2. Use Acoustic Floor Underlayment
First off, when talking about how to soundproof a floor in an apartment, this DIY sound method comes to the fore. Without a doubt, you have to get dirty now.
As I said earlier, acoustic underlay is one of the materials used for this purpose. It is placed under the carpet or any other thing to boost the effectiveness of sound absorption.
To install them, you need to remove the vinyl or any present carpets and place them. I will be giving you examples of these underlays but how much effort do you need in order to install them?
To be honest it would take you some time and a bit of effort to successfully complete this task. And you cannot do it alone, a second man will be useful.
This can go a long way to provide you with one of the greatest underlay solutions for your floor. If you have a concrete or wood sub-floors, make sure to use this material.
It won’t just try to muffle sound, any moisture and vibrations will be barred entry too.
This is yet another product you want to try on wood and laminate floors. It is designed from the heavy-duty dense foam composite material.
And comes with the convenient self-sealing systems which means there is no need for an adhesive.
- The Mass-Loaded Vinyl
The mass loaded vinyl is a versatile material, dense and comes with an adhesive on one of its sides. You want to use this in reducing vibrations.
The advantage of this product is that you can even resize it by cutting into different shapes and sizes. Then apply them on the surface as needed.
This Trademark Soundproofing MLV is particularly a product to trust – it is ultra-thin, odorless and deadens sound effectively.
- Cork Tiles
If you want an on-flooring option, then these cork tiles by Classic Mules can do you the perfect soundproofing job. Cork tiles have a variety of advantages; they are waterproof, anti-slip, and more to them is the thermal insulation capabilities.
3. You to Try Carpet Padding
This is another DIY technique you will come to appreciate. In other words, you can call it carpeting. It is definitely the most common among others.
The carpet pads are good floor soundproofing materials you can place beneath your standard carpet. You can call a professional to come and install these for you if you doubt your skills and experience because any small imperfections and the noise would still be a major problem.
Installing, however, needs just a few tools and a second person to help you. You will roll over your material to the four ends of your floor and hold it with either nails (not recommended for tenants) or glue.
You need to choose the right pad when buying one since they come in varieties. However, parameters such as adequate thickness, comfort, and durability are key to your decision making.
Ensure that during the installation the soft carpet pads are placed in fewer traffic areas/rooms like the bedroom.
For your sake, I recommend this Rug Pad USA Felt and Rubber Padding which comes as a non-slip rug pad designed specifically to reduce noise filtrating through the floor.
4. Use Interlocking Floor Mats
The next method is an easy one – the interlocking floor mats – and it is perhaps one of the cheapest among equals. These mats do a relatively great job when it comes to soundproofing and protecting the floor of your apartment.
They can reduce some vibrations, although not perfectly. But it is not a bad idea to have these on your floor if you are the busiest man on the planet.
When using these mats, start by laying the first one in the corner of your floor. What’s next is that you will just need to connect the rest of the pieces next to each other as if you are solving a puzzle.
You will do this on the whole surface.
The interlocking floor mats come with the following advantages
- They are durable and can reduce incidence of injuries
- An easy and quick assemblage for the guys who don’t want to waste time
- You can use these materials in many places: garage, gyms, play areas, etc.
- They are easy to clean
My recommendation is these Forest Floor Interlocking Tiles with attractive wood grain. They also come with great style and comfort. You will need to combine these tiles with other materials to achieve better soundproof flooring.
Achieve Better Results with Soundproofing Compounds.
I know that your project is just fine the way it is. But making sure that everything is perfect can pay even greater dividends.
With that said, you can improve the noise reduction capability of your materials by using the soundproofing compounds. Soundproof compounds are the adhesives (such as glue) that can be applied these materials to secure or hold them in place.
The adhesive will not only hold your carpets and mats but also add to the noise reduction capacities – they also have noise canceling properties.
You can look for this Green Glue Compound on Amazon. It has some of the best properties of canceling noise: industrial strength and eliminating noise.
In Conclusion
Living in an apartment is not going to guarantee you a cool stay. Noise from neighbors, children crying, walls being knocked, loud TV and music among others can disrupt your life.
The only easy trick you want to get acquainted with is to know how to soundproof a floor in an apartment. There are a number of methods for that matter.
All you need to do is to single out what technique you think would be working for you. If it doesn’t work, go ahead and combine with another.
Eventually, the good results from your soundproofing efforts will be imminent.
Note that most of the techniques outlined above are do-it-yourself. However, don’t struggle to do the work if your skills aren’t up to the task – just call an expert to help.
