Poor noise insulation from floor BELOW!

7 years ago

Hi - we just moved into a single family home that was converted to a 2-unit condo building about 5 years ago (~2014). We have the 2nd and 3rd floors plus the roof, with bedrooms/bathrooms on the 2nd floor and living/dining/kitchen on the top floor. Inspite of having cork below the flooring and carpets in the bedrooms, we can still always here our neighbor downstairs! The issue is NOT noise per se - we can block that out - but we can hear the vibration of her moving around. That is VERY hard to not hear.

Any thoughts/ideas on how we address this? It is that noise you hear when someone is walking around and you feel that light vibration...a much milder version of when a neighbor has their sub-woofer too loud with bass.

Would really appreciate any insight/thoughts on how we can address this! Thanks :)

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Comments (4)

PRO
GN Builders L.L.C
7 years ago
Are you saying that when someone walks on the floor bellow you feel the vibration on the floor floor above?
HU-955941711
7 years ago
What kind of activity is going on below you that is causing the vibrations? Is it the entire 1st floor or a particular area? If it's normal residential living, I'd suspect a structural issue. What modifications were done in the conversion to a condo? Were any walls removed to open up a room or two?

JM$.02W
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SJ McCarthy
7 years ago
Sorry but a regular home that has been converted into apartments will have these types of issues. Condos are purposefully built to prevent vibration/noise transfer. They use decoupling methods and noise reducing components that ensure the least amount of intrusion.

A regular home is not built this way. It will have all the walls connected to all other walls (framing will be stacked; insulation in the walls may or may not be there). The reason: if you're family you won't care if you hear/feel someone walking around below. You love them and you don't mind their intrusion into your life...no matter what form that takes.

What you are feeling is the vibration transfer from HER floor into HER walls and then the vibration moves UP the studs and into YOUR floor (which is her ceiling...which is why we refer to it as a floor/ceiling construction). These are all mechanically fastened to each other. There were no decoupling products use to prevent vibrations from moving into your space.

Unless you bring in a company to deconstruct all the walls, decouple the ENTIRE home and then rebuild, this isn't going away. It is a regular home. It was built this way because that's how it was designed (soooo much cheaper to build a 4 story house than a 4 story condo/apartment simply because there is no need to use decoupling technology + excessive internal insulation).
Farid Vij
Original Author
7 years ago
Thanks all for the feedback. I think you are confirming that it is a structural issue which is what I suspected due to the conversion from house to condo. There is no extraordinary noise or anything. In fact, our downstairs neighbor is fairly quiet but we can hear when she walks around. Looks like we will just have to get used to it and hopefully we can!