wood floors in flats. can it work?

[alice]

Been looking at a flat with a big kitchen living room ~ a wood floor would look good but the lease says no. Is there a way round this with insulation? Ideas?

[DulwichFox]

If the lease says NO then it's NO..

If you insulate the floor with a soft material the joints in the wood floor will break..

DulwichFox

[cantthinkofaname]

No no no and no.

You will set yourself up for years of complaints from the neighbours below. Period houses were not meant to be flats, and so the footsteps will sound like a deafening drum to those below.

In NYC it's illegal to have wooden floors if people live below you.

[LondonMix]

We put down wood floors in our flat (we were on the second floor). Our lease said the same but we owned a share of freehold and luckily the neighbour below us was an architect and so understood that adequate sound proofing was entirely possible. He suggested he'd be happy if we laid down an Iso 200 mat as sound proofing. Our fitter recommended one that was thinner that also had a higher sound insulation called TimberTech HD Contract 5.

After it was installed our neighbor actually said they heard us less than they did before on the vinyl flooring that was previously in the kitchen and living room.

When we sold the flat and bought our house, we installed this same insulation again under the wood floors in the upstairs bedrooms and there is virtually no noise transfer.

If you own your freehold, just speak to your neighbours. Its entirely possible to make it work. If they agree, you can just get a side letter agreed rather than varying the lease. Their consent in a side letter will suffice for future sales- we handled the arrangement via a side letter and there were no issues when we came to sell.

Good luck.

[LondonMix]

Also, what you've said about NY isn't true. Most high end new construction is fitted with wood floors. Again, its a question of the sound proofing you install as an underlay. In period properties its very straight forward to install appropriate sound insulation. Both my flat and my current house are Victorian.

cantthinkofaname Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> No no no and no.

> You will set yourself up for years of complaints

> from the neighbours below. Period houses were not

> meant to be flats, and so the footsteps will sound

> like a deafening drum to those below.

> In NYC it's illegal to have wooden floors if

> people live below you.

[intexasatthe moment]

High end vinyl ?

Our lease says lots of things - no music after 11pm ,no window boxes ...

[JohnL]

Our lease says no - but flats I've seen for sale in our block all have them.

We are actually very well soundproofed except strangely to the corridor outside the door :)

[DulwichFox]

If your lease says.. No wooden flooring and you go ahead and install it at great expense...

.. you may find the lease holder will insist that you remove it... at more expense.

Some flooring for Kichens require it stuck down to prevent water seapage.. taking it up may well damage the actual

foor and you will have to pay for that too.

DulwichFox

[bobbsy]

Most leases actually say no bare wooden flooring...get a custom made carpet over it and voila!