Changing your flooring to carpet, timber, laminate or tiles requires Strata approval, and you'll need an acoustic report as part of that process. This guide covers what's required, how to get it, and what happens if it doesn't hold up.
Sound travels differently through hard flooring than through carpet, and The Precinct's building standard sets a minimum acoustic threshold that any new floor must meet. This protects the amenity of the apartment below yours as much as it protects you from a future dispute.
Voices, TV and music are mostly absorbed by the slab's own mass, so a 220mm solid slab already handles that reasonably well. The harder problem is impact noise – footsteps, dropped objects, subwoofers – which vibrates through the slab itself. This is what an acoustic underlay is there to solve, and it's the part your flooring choice needs to get right.
Because there's no gyprock ceiling or insulation underneath the slab, there's no second layer doing any of the acoustic work for you. The flooring and underlay combination has to carry the full load on its own – which is why the report needs to test your exact setup rather than a generic spec sheet. Small differences show up more directly in the apartment below when there's nothing to buffer them.
On a slab like ours, more flexible flooring (laminate, for example) tends to perform better acoustically than a rigid material like ceramic tile, because it can flex slightly and let the underlay absorb the impact rather than transmitting it straight through.
Wherever new flooring meets a skirting board or wall, a rigid connection lets noise “flank” around the underlay into the slab. A proper installation leaves a small gap filled with flexible sealant instead.
Worth doing properly the first time. Some flooring companies won't work in apartments at all because of this requirement, so it's worth confirming upfront that a prospective installer can supply a compliant report before you commit to them.