Annoyance evaluation of impact sounds on lightweight, concrete and cross-laminated timber floors - A comparative study

For people living in multi-unit residential buildings, neighbor noise and especially impact noise from neighbors, such as dropping objects or footsteps, can affect the quality of living of those who hear the noise. In order to support the inclusion of limits for impact noise in a future edition of the National Building Code of Canada, a project at the National Research Council of Canada has focused on the perceived annoyance from different types of impact sounds for various timber floor-ceiling assemblies. The results from listening experiments showed poor correlation between subjective ratings and objective single number metrics for impact noise due to persons walking without shoes. To extend this evaluation to a wider variety of floor-ceiling assembly types and to validate previous results, another listening experiment was conducted at the National Research Council. Annoyance ratings for ball drops, hammer impacts and footsteps on different lightweight, concrete and cross-laminated timber floor-ceiling assemblies were compared.