Carpet softens harsh sounds and creates a quieter, more peaceful indoor environment.
The installation of carpet and underlay is the only method available for eliminating excessive noise generated by floor impacts such as noise produced from footfalls, chairs scraped across the floor and objects dropped on the floor. This is particularly important in homes where children running and jumping can produce heavy floor impacts, contributing greatly to ambient noise levels.
Carpet and underlay also help to control sound reverberation, the term used to describe the degree to which sound lives on within a room. Reverberant homes are generally noisy and ‘echoey’ places where speech communication, particularly over the phone, is difficult.
The installation of carpet and underlay will bring long reverberation times down to acceptable levels. While there are other sound absorption alternatives such as acoustic ceiling tiles and panels, they do not reduce floor impacts and for this reason cannot achieve the same overall reduction in noise levels.
Noise attenuation is yet another reason why carpet is an excellent floor covering choice where functionality and fashion are important.
Interior designer Rochelle Morris, demonstrates the acoustic benefits of carpet in your home
Video Transcript
It seems almost impossible to escape excessive noise in our busy, modern lives. The local café, catching a tram, even our workplaces can leave our ears ringing. Unfortunately, for a lot of us, this also extends to our homes. But it doesn’t have to.
Hi, I’m Rochelle Morris, an interior designer, and today I want to talk to you about the acoustic benefits of carpet.
We’re here at one of Grollo’s display homes, an ideal place to discover the peace and tranquillity that carpet can deliver. Come on in and have a look.
We all know how active and energetic children can be. They’re little running machines and, while their feet are small, the noise they make is certainly not. But listen to what happens when they move from hard surfaces onto carpet.
It’s almost a complete reduction in noise. Not only is the sound of their feet striking the floor greatly reduced, but there’s no longer any reverberation off hard walls and ceilings, and it’s this reverberation that leads to loud, echoey homes.
This is particularly important for multi-level homes. Carpet will actually absorb the noise of any activity upstairs, and prevent it echoing through to the rooms below.
Chairs scraping across hard timber floors, dropped objects – all the incidental noises of everyday life no longer disrupt a peaceful home.
Something else I want to show you is this magnificent entertainment room. If you’re one of the many people finding themselves always turning the TV volume up, it may simply be the design of the room.Hard surfaces reverberate sound, and the louder the sound, the longer the reverberation. Carpet makesconversation crisp and distinct, which is particularly valuable when entertaining.
And as this room demonstrates, carpet doesn’t have to be only functional. I just love the pattern and texture of this carpet, and the luxuriant feel it lends this space.
Noise is a big part of our lives, and something we all need a break from every now and then. Make your home a peaceful and quiet retreat that you can escape to.
- cause stress and affect human wellbeing
- impair productivity in the workplace and the classroom, and
- affect patient outcomes in hospitals and aged care facilities.
A range of factors contribute to the increased level of concern about acoustic privacy and these include:
- open plan offices and homes
- a large increase in the number of people living in town houses and apartments
- inadequacy of existing impact sound insulation regulations.
Carpet can significantly improve the functionality of indoor spaces by reducing unwanted noise.
Floor Impact Noise
Carpet virtually eliminates floor impact sounds such as noise produced by footfalls, chairs scraped across the floor, and objects dropped onto the floor.
According to acoustical consultants, Graeme E Harding and Associates (GEHA):
“The installation of carpet or similar types of floor covering is the only method available for eliminating excessive noise generated by floor impacts. Carpeted floors can result in a reduction in noise of over 20 decibels.” This is particularly important in schools, busy offices, health care facilities and in the home with children, where floor impact sounds can contribute greatly to ambient noise levels.
Reverberation Control
The pile structure of carpet also helps to control reverberation. A material’s potential for reverberation control is quantified by its Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) and/or by its Weighted Sound Reduction Coefficient, αw (pronounced ‘alpha w’). A typical broadloom carpet has an NRC of 0.35 and will absorb approximately 35% of sound that strikes it. The NRC rating of carpet is directly proportional to the thickness of the floor covering. If the carpet is installed with an underlay its NRC rating will almost double. NRC ratings of common room finishes are provided in Table 1.
Table 1 : Noise Reduction Coefficients (NRC)
| Material | Noise Reduction Coefficient (approximate) |
| Carpet with underlay | 0.65 |
| Acoustic ceiling tile | 0.55 to 0.95 |
| Carpet | 0.35 |
| Timber floor | 0.09 |
| Plasterboard | 0.07 |
AS/NZS 2107:2000: Recommended Design Sound Levels and Reverberation Times for Building Interiors provides recommended reverberation times (T60) for a range of indoor environments in order to ensure good speech intelligibility, control of noise and a degree of acoustic privacy.
Recommendations for common spaces are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 : Recommended Reverberation Times
| Type of occupancy | Recommended reverberation time (T60) |
| General office areas | 0.4 to 0.6 seconds |
| Private offices | 0.6 to 0.8 seconds |
| Primary school classrooms | 0.4 to 0.5 seconds |
| Domestic living areas | Less than 0.8 seconds* |
* GEHA recommendation (AS/NZS 2107 does not include advice for T60 in domestic spaces).
Reverberation times for common spaces with and without carpet were calculated by GEHA using CSIRO test data commissioned by the Carpet Institute. In all cases, installation of carpet and underlay was predicted to bring excessively long reverberation times down to acceptable levels.
Noise attenuation is another reason why carpet is the best floor covering choice where functionality and fashion are important.
Impact Sound through Floor / Ceiling Systems
Noise from footfall in the apartment above is a common source of complaint among modern apartment dwellers.
Building Code of Australia (BCA) Acoustic Criteria
The BCA incorporates Deemed-to–Satisfy provisions for impact sound insulation of floor / ceilings separating apartments.
The Carpet Institute commissioned CSIRO acoustical laboratories to test a range of carpets for impact sound insulation in accordance with the BCA requirements. All floors tested with carpet were found to easily pass the BCA criterion for impact sound. Results are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3 : Impact Sound Insulation Values and BCA Requirements
| Product | Impact sound rating (Ln,w + CI, dB) | Performance |
| Requirements for Class 2 & 3 buildings | 62 or less | |
| Carpet with underlay on concrete | 30 | Excellent impact sound insulation |
| Carpets without underlay on concrete | 42 | Good impact sound insulation |
| Concrete floor | 68 | Inadequate impact sound insulation |
Carpet is the most effective and practical option for protecting residents of multi-storey buildings from impact generated noise from occupancies above.
