Underlayment and insulation significantly enhance the iic.
Iic of old carpeting.
If we require an underlayment iic of 70 for any type flooring no ceramic stone tile allowed will we most likely hit actual mid 50 s in fiic.
I am on the board of a condo and we are developing the details for flooring requirements.
Lumber liquidators has always been a great place to turn if you re interested in store branded flooring and are on a tight budget.
The company sells a variety of flooring as well from bamboo and laminates to cork and luxury vinyl planks.
The quietwalk underlayment provides very high ratings such as iic of 71 and stc 66 as of mid 2018.
The planks will minimize seaming and therefore the opportunity to transmit sound through breaks in the flooring material.
They recently expanded their arsenal to include engineered vinyl flooring otherwise known as evp and it falls under the coreluxe brand.
On top of that the manufacture of the floor covering can use different materials.
Qu cork products have an iic rating of 71 well above the code minimum and above many carpet pad combinations which often range from 50 to 65 depending on the type of carpet and the quality of the carpet cushion pad.
Surfaces and areas under the floor influence impact isolation class.
This is the finished visible flooring surface such as hardwood planks carpeting ceramic tile or vinyl.
For that reason the delta iic rating is the gold standard for testing acoustics and flooring.
Iic 65 is a high level of impact sound transmission absorption and includes superior sound reduction materials like carpet and cork.
The old system stc iic allowed anything in the test chamber.
All ratings are not equal as with any underlayment sound testing number that a company gives you each subfloor or floor assembly in your home.
This is the layer that you see and walk on.
The condo is 50 yrs old with wooden subfloors and just gypsum board attached to joist.
Its purpose is to provide a smooth flat surface for the floor covering.
The delta iic test then mathematically removes the sound rating of the 6 concrete slab leaving behind a number that is attributed to the underlay flooring combination.