Don’t be that upstairs neighbour: A quieter floor after renovation
Anyone who has ever lived beneath another apartment knows the sound. Footsteps at 6:30 am, a chair being dragged across the floor at 10:00 pm, the patter of small feet on a Sunday morning. We know it is all part of everyday life, yet all of us wish the people upstairs could be a little quieter.
It is worth turning the question around: what do we sound like to the neighbour below?
New floor, new problems
A renovation often ends with beautiful new flooring. Light-coloured laminate, oak or a herringbone pattern. It looks fantastic, but once the room is back in use, it can sound like a theatre stage. Every step is audible, while heels and moving chairs transmit noise through the structure. Modern floors are hard, and hard surfaces reflect and transfer sound.
The flooring itself is not the problem. What matters is what lies beneath it, or more precisely, what is missing.
The layer people forget about
Many installers treat underlay as little more than a filler for minor unevenness before moving on to the finished floor. In reality, it plays an important role in how the floor sounds and feels underfoot. A good underlay forms a resilient layer between the flooring and the structural slab, helping to reduce the transmission of footstep noise.
Kokon Floor Pro is a rebond foam underlay available in rolls of different thicknesses. It is installed beneath laminate flooring or floorboards on a level, dry subfloor and in accordance with the installation instructions. Compared with the cost of the entire renovation, it is a relatively small decision, but one that stays with you for years. You will not see it in photographs, but you may hear the difference every day.
Who appreciates it most?
Families with children. Running, jumping and falling building blocks all create noise. The underlay helps soften these sounds while making the floor more comfortable beneath small feet.
Dog owners. Claws on hard laminate can sound like constant clattering. A resilient layer underneath changes the character of that sound.
People who work from home or late into the evening. A wheeled office chair and regular trips across the apartment generate noise that the neighbour below can hear very clearly.
Night owls. Making tea at 2:00 am does not have to wake the entire floor.
Good neighbourliness as an investment
A quieter floor is a considerate gesture towards the people who share the building with us. Neighbours rarely remember someone for being quiet, but they certainly remember someone who was noisy. Many of us live in the same building for years, and our relationships with the people on the other side of the wall or beneath our floor can affect everyday comfort more than many decorative details.
There is a selfish benefit too: a home without a constantly clattering floor simply feels better. Footsteps sound softer, and even an ordinary morning walk across the room with a cup of coffee becomes more pleasant.
A second-hand material in the best possible sense
Rebond is made from recycled polyurethane foam offcuts. It gives the material a second life instead of sending it to landfill. By choosing an underlay made this way, you are not adding yet another disposable material to your renovation.
Before you lay the flooring
If you are planning a renovation, talk to your installer about the underlay before ordering the flooring. It is one of those elements that is easy to overlook but difficult to add later without lifting the finished floor. Peace and quiet in an apartment building does not begin with banging on the ceiling. It begins with a decision made when the floor is installed.
