Are you a homeowner struggling with a lot of noise in between floors? Or maybe you’re planning new multi-family construction and need to meet the International Building Code? Whether you’re trying to meet code or dealing with the end result, footsteps and other loud noises can be extremely difficult to ignore and quite frustrating.

Our homes are our personal spaces and unwanted disruptions can deprive us of sleep, increase our stress, make us less productive, and ultimately make us more likely to leave that home. No one wants to come home to hear their neighbors listening to the TV or rearranging their furniture at odd hours. If these noises are driving you crazy, it’s time to look at soundproofing your floors. And we have all the information to teach you how and what it will cost!

Most Common Types of Noise Issues with a Floor

To begin soundproofing, it’s important to know what kind of noise you want to stop. There are two types of noise to consider when soundproofing a floor. First, you have airborne noise. Airborne noise is noise that travels through the air. This can be people’s voices while talking, dogs barking, a cell phone ringing, music from the radio, TV sounds, or sirens and honking from vehicles outside. There is airborne noise all around you. The best way to stop airborne noise is to block the sound energy with high STC rating structures that are installed as airtight as possible. You want excellent barriers with no gaps where sound can travel through.

An STC rating, or Sound Transmission Class, is the single number value we assign to how much airborne sound a structure is able to stop. When evaluating STC ratings, a rule of thumb is +3 STC points is barely noticeable, +5 STC points will be obvious, and +10 STC will be half as loud. Eliminating sound leaks, or gaps, is very important to hitting those high STC ratings.

For most floor soundproofing projects, you will be dealing with impact noise. Impact noise is caused by physical collisions. Examples of this are machinery, jumping, moving furniture, or slamming doors that result in vibrations traveling through a structure. The vibrational energy moves through the structure before being released into the air and then heard by your ears as noise.

The key to soundproofing a floor is to isolate and prevent impact energy from entering a building’s structure. Once inside a structure, vibrations can travel a great distance, which can then transfer sound energy to the floor below or adjacent rooms. Floor-ceiling structure effectiveness is measured by IIC, or Impact Isolation Class. A structure’s IIC rating is a lab-tested effectiveness of how it isolates impact sounds and prevents transmission of vibrations. Just like STC, the higher the rating, the better. Many flooring options for improving IIC rating will improve the STC rating as well. Two problems solved at the same time!

How to Soundproof a Floor

We have two amazing products to make soundproofing your floor a breeze! The first is our UnderBlock Rubber Floor Underlayment. UnderBlock rubber underlayment stops impact noise and airborne noise through floor-ceiling assemblies. Install it under just about any type of flooring for best-in-class noise reduction. This superhero is ready to save you from footfall noise with the best IIC and STC ratings you can achieve between floors.

Another great product is sound isolation clips, which technically is used to soundproof a ceiling underneath the floor, but accomplishes the same floor soundproofing. These sound isolation clips are headlined by the RSIC-1, which has been around for 20+ years and is an incredible soundproofing tool. We prefer them because they have a huge variety of clips beyond the RSIC-1 to work in any assembly and are far and away tested in the mst UL fire rated assemblies of any sound isolation clip. They also hit a huge variety of price points, whether you’re trying to just barely meet the building code at the lowest possible cost or want to max out the best possible soundproofing.

Reach out to a Second Skin expert to discuss your floor soundproofing project and which set of products will hit your goals!

Cost To Soundproof a Floor

The chart below is a great visual to see what the cost of soundproofing a floor would be using our products.

UnderBlock™ Rubber Floor Underlayment

How to Soundproof a Floor

Cost of Soundproof Ceiling