The Easy Guide to Tiling & Meeting Acoustic Requirements of the NZ Building Code

Reduce Noise Levels By 10–14db!

Design Professionals and consumers want durable design-driven, low maintenance floor finishes that create a continuous flow, last the test of time, and meet Code requirements.

Multilevel Buildings with different tenancies are required under the NZ Building Code G6.2 and G6.3.2 to have Acoustic properties of not less than llC 55”.

(This Standard states “The Impact Insulation Class of floors shall be no less than 55” or 50, which is the field test requirement (ie not a laboratory test).

1. The Code requirement is not however the scale that Acoustic engineers use to measure sound reduction which is Decibels (db) L n T,w. This Scale has the Same pass rate of 55 But is a reverse scale so the Lower the decibel Noise transfer the better.
2. Acoustic noise reduction systems, therefore, look to reduce or improve an existing floor to 55 Decibels (db) L n T,w or less in a total flooring systems test.
3. Below we show Examples of acoustic reduction systems on a Bare Concrete floor (without any additional reduction in Decibels from other Building Elements like Insulation and roof lining). This example is based on a Bare concrete floor at an estimated worst-case 69 Decibels which shows to achieve a Pass rate you will need to use the last two Systems. However, if the bare Concrete system is closer to 59 Decibels all Systems will take the floor into a pass position of 55 decibels or less.