Soundproofing with Vinyl
It is a popular misconception that a vinyl floor finish cannot be installed over acoustic flooring. The acoustic flooring market is vast and there are many flooring solutions and products available. A number of methods of acoustic flooring installation will lend themselves to a vinyl soundproofing finish, but it is equally true that many won’t. Unfortunately, this problem tends to arise a long way down the design and installation line, creating problems for all those involved. At Hush Acoustics, we get asked this question regularly, and here we aim to shed some light on this topic. Whether you are an architect, contractor or floor finish installer, this blog post is for you.
The first point to consider is that architects and contractors need to agree on floor finishes, and it is particularly important that this agreement is reached during the early design stage to avoid issues with vinyl soundproofing installation further down the line. One common issue that arises is when a vinyl finish can’t be installed over an acoustic floor due to the adhesives or self-levelling compounds that have been used, in many cases because of use of a chipboard topping.
Acoustic flooring often consists of chipboard bonded to a resilient material. Common opinion holds that vinyl soundproofing can’t be installed over chipboard, but in fact, vinyl floors can be successfully installed over chipboard topped acoustic panels, such as our Hush Panel 28 and Hush Panel 32. Vinyl floor manufacturers and floor fitters need to agree on the correct levelling compounds and adhesives to be used when bedding a vinyl floor covering on to a chipboard deck, but it’s not all as simple as that.
Architects should specify a plywood topped board at the start of the project if intending to finish with vinyl soundproofing. Here at Hush, we produce the Hush Ply 28 and Hush Ply 32 in answer to this problem – and we can advise on what product to use from early in the design stage. It’s much easier – and cheaper – to specify the correct product from the outset than to install extra ply toppings and trimmings further down the line.
Secondly, vinyl is a thin floor covering, and any joints in chipboard or plywood acoustic flooring will show. Joints in acoustic flooring should be sealed and smoothed before vinyl is laid, and this is where joint filler or self-levelling compounds are needed. At Hush, we know that if the correct levelling and filler compounds are used, with joints hidden and the correct vinyl adhesive used, vinyl installation issues will be kept to a minimum.
Finally, it is important to think about the use of thinner vinyl coverings. Some of the developments we work on (especially in the commercial sector) require a thin underlay product to be used due to limited space. We’ve developed our Hush Underlay for Vinyl Flooring for this purpose. It’s a 3 mm cork/rubber membrane that can be installed over a structure (normally masonry with a screed) and directly under the vinyl soundproofing, offering significant impact noise reduction with limited floor build-up – less than 5 mm with both underlay and vinyl in most cases.
In a nutshell, vinyl floor coverings can be installed over acoustic flooring. However, there are guidelines to be followed. We have attempted to outline these guidelines here, but please contact us for further clarification.
