Noise is a bigger deal than you may think, ranking up there with second-hand smoke as a public health hazard. And it’s not just outside noise like traffic coming into buildings that causes problems. Much noise that is both annoying and, in aggregate, harmful to our health is generated inside the building: with clangs, bangs, footfalls, machinery, and more. For the building designer, the problem of noise generated inside a building has a solution, particularly in the flooring specification, a cost-effective design strategy that can lead to dampened sounds and vibrations, and therefore a healthier environment. But you need to know how noise operates, especially impact noise, how it moves through buildings, where to provide impact insulation, and thus how to lessen the impact on occupants. We’ll show how several designers and architects specified flooring products to do just that.

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