|
Up to 40,000 complaints were received by environmental health officers last year over 'impact noise' arising from wooden floors.
With a fifth of the UK population living in flats, the noise factor from hard floors become serious enough for Defra along with the Scottish Executive to fund a study in Scotland where a higher proportion of people live in flats.
This week a report, by the building performance centre at Napier University, Edinburgh, will reveal that walking on a carpet with underlay is 22 decibels quieter than walking on a wooden floor - the equivalent noise reduction of wearing earplugs. The discrepancy between walking on wooden and concrete floors is even higher, with the former 34dB louder.
The problem is particularly acute with people who live in flats and Scotland has a bigger share of its population living in flats, some 38% compared to 20% in the whole of the UK. Among these Scottish flats, 72 per cent have wooden timber-joist floors.
But with the current trend for exposing old wooden floorboards in Victorian buildings the issue is set to grow, not decline.
The law states that people who create noise nuisance are liable in law. This could make the tenant liable, as they are literally creating the noise. However the report is expected to say that the law is unclear and suggests that even the builders could be liable.
|
Get
this news on your website !
Sponsored listings: