Apartment Flooring.

In a freestanding house, flooring is a style decision. In an apartment it's a noise decision first — every footstep, dropped key and dragged chair travels through the concrete slab into the apartment below as impact sound. That's why almost every strata scheme in Australia has a by-law about hard flooring, and why body corporates knock back floors that can't prove their acoustic performance.

The floors in this range were chosen to make that conversation easy: 9.5mm hybrid boards with acoustic backing already attached, tested to L'nT,w 41 and FIIC 69 — a 5 Star AAAC acoustic result that satisfies the noise requirements of most apartment buildings. For the full decision guide, read the best flooring for apartments in Australia.

Three measurements decide whether a floor is apartment-grade, and they're worth 60 seconds to understand because they're what your body corporate will ask about.

L'nT,w (weighted impact sound level) measures how much impact noise reaches the room below in a real building — lower is better. This range tests at 41, comfortably inside the range strata schemes typically require for hard flooring.

FIIC (Field Impact Insulation Class) is the same idea measured the American way — higher is better. At 69, these floors sit in the band acoustic consultants class as an excellent result for a floating floor.

AAAC stars come from the Association of Australasian Acoustical Consultants' apartment guideline, which grades acoustic performance in star bands. 5 Star is the top-tier level typically specified for premium apartment developments — and it's the rating this entire range carries.

Most approvals stall because owners can't produce acoustic evidence. Here's the short path:

1. Ask strata for the requirement in writing. Most by-laws specify a maximum impact rating (an L'nT,w figure) or an AAAC star level for hard flooring.

2. Submit the acoustic documentation with your application. Email us before you apply and we'll send the acoustic specification for the floor you've chosen — L'nT,w 41, FIIC 69, 5 Star AAAC — so your submission answers the question before it's asked.

3. Install to spec. Because the acoustic underlay is factory-attached, there's no separate underlay product for the committee to query and no risk of the wrong underlay being swapped in on install day.

Every building writes its own by-laws, so always check yours — but at these numbers, most committees have nothing left to object to.

The 5 Star rating isn't achieved with a separate roll of underlay — the acoustic backing is bonded to every board at the factory. That matters for three reasons.

No extra cost or trade step. You skip buying, delivering and laying a separate underlay across the whole apartment.

No compliance gap. The tested acoustic result is the board as supplied — what was tested is exactly what ends up on your slab, which body corporates like.

Lower build height. At 9.5mm plus its integrated backing, the finished floor usually sits lower than the carpet-plus-underlay it replaces, so doors rarely need trimming. One warning from our installers: don't add another soft underlay underneath a pre-backed hybrid — doubling up makes the click joints flex and can void the warranty.

Every floor here is a click-lock floating floor — boards lock to each other and float over the slab, with no glue, no nails and no demolition. In an apartment that's the difference between a weekend job and a building-manager headache: no jackhammering out tiles, no adhesive fumes in shared corridors, and lift-friendly 9.5mm board cartons instead of tile pallets.

They lay straight over concrete, existing tiles or timber with a moisture barrier, and they're water resistant — happy in kitchens, living areas and laundries. For apartment bathrooms, floating floors are the wrong tool: use our fully adhered glue-down vinyl instead, which is waterproof because there are no floating joins for water to find.