help minimizing noise

[sweetea]

I'm using a cobalt flux on wooden floor, problem is I live in an apartment. For the sake of my neighbors downstairs, is there anything I can do to minimize the noise they hear when I stomp on the pad? Thanks.

All ideas are welcome

[yukihime]

Hi sweetea!

First I just gotta say I'm SOOOOO jealous you have a CF (trying to save for one).

To your noise problem ... I live on the 3rd floor of a about 100 y/o house - wood floors, plaster walls and ceilings and my roomie's living room is right under mine - and she's NOT a happy camper since I started doing ddr!

Right now I'm working with a company called Super Soundproofing, they're in Vista, CA. Their sales number is 888-942-7723 and they have a website, which is how I found them - soundproofing.org And they have a forum!

They're really nice, knowledgable people, and they really look at each situation and give you what they think is the best solution for your problem. I had emailed them about the DDR pad issue, noise/vibration, angry roomie, some new small cracks in her ceiling (UH OH! - it's HER house!) and they took about 4 days to figure out a solution that they think is going to be right for me. They said it was a first for them with this type of problem!

Just be sure to give them the info - wood floor, whatever the walls/ceiling are made of, the weight of the pad, maybe your weight?, if you're a heavy stepper ... whatever you can think of.

I'm right now using a dense foam pad, wood floor with a 4x6' area rug (small room). I do have a 1/2" thick piece of wood on the rug, then the dance pad.

I've already ordered and received 4' of their best Mass Loaded Vinyl with closed cell foam (54" wide) and 8' of their SSP Super-Seal Impact Isolator for under wood. It's not laid down yet because I oops'd on measuring, and because I decided after getting the order that instead of simply putting 4' of each thing under the rug and having to kind of really stay in that particular spot - and I had this kind of visual of a drop of water hitting still water ... it ripples, right? Soooooo, I started thinking (always dangerous) that sound/vibration would probably do something similar.

My plan now is to actually cover the entire area under the rug. So, I will need to get 4 more feet of the MLV, and just order 10' (it's 3.3' wide) of the SSP. That should give me enough to leave about a 1" "border" from the edge of the rug - and should (I hope!) take care of alot of the noise and vibration.

Since I'll have extra of the SSP (my first order miscalculation), I'm going to ask them when I call to order more of this is ... is there anything I can affix to that SSP, then tape it or whatever to the piece of wood I put my pad on.

I'm figuring a layer of SSP, then the MLV, rug, then technically a smaller (size of piece of wood) layer of SSP and maybe the least expensive, no foam back MLV will equal double the help to keep the roomie and the house happy (tons less noise and vibration).

The MLV is amazingly heavy, just fyi. The SSP weighs nothing.

Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded, but that's my suggestion. Get in touch with soundproofing.org
_________________

Live Like There's No Tomorrow,
Dance Like Nobody's Watching!