Quiet Floors: Why a Marchand Floor Does Not Creak, and What It Does for Apartments
Two sounds tell you how a timber floor was built. A creak at a joint means the boards are moving against each other or against the subfloor. A hollow note underfoot means there is air beneath the board. Both are common in New Zealand houses, and both are avoidable at specification.
Where creaks come from
A floated floor sits on a foam or rubber underlay, held together only by its click or tongue-and-groove joints. Every step flexes the boards a fraction into the underlay, and over a few seasons of humidity movement the joints work loose and begin to talk. Thin boards flex more, so a 12mm or 14mm floated floor is the most likely to creak, and it is also the one most often sold as the quick option.
A Marchand floor is 20mm thick and fully glued to the substrate with a flexible wood flooring adhesive. There is no air gap, the boards cannot flex into anything, and the adhesive holds every board to the slab or the ply for its whole length. That is why a glue-down floor stays quiet, and why we do not approve a floating installation of our board.
Where the hollow sound comes from
The same air gap. A floated floor is a drum skin over a void; a glued 20mm board is a solid surface bonded to a solid one. The difference is obvious in a bare room and still there under furniture. It is the reason a glue-down floor feels like a solid timber floor underfoot, and it is one of the things people notice first in our studios.
Sound between floors
In an apartment or a two-storey house the question changes: not the sound in the room, but the sound that reaches the room below. Impact sound (footsteps, a dropped cup) travels through a hard floor into the structure, and bodies corporate and the Building Code both care about it.
Marchand supplies a 3mm rubber acoustic mat that is bonded to the substrate, with the flooring then glued to the mat. The University of Auckland tested the 20mm flooring over that mat to ISO 10140-3, rated to ISO 717-2, on 27 May 2025, and measured an improvement in impact sound insulation of ΔLw = 11 dB. The figure is for the system as laid, flooring over mat, not for the mat alone, and the certificate is published in full on our Specification and Compliance page. Whether 11 dB meets a particular building's requirement depends on the slab and the target; give us the acoustic engineer's figure and we will say whether the system reaches it.
Specifying a quiet floor
For a house on a slab: 20mm Marchand flooring, glued down to a primed slab, no expansion gaps. For an apartment or an upper floor where sound transfer matters: the acoustic mat bonded to the substrate first, then the flooring glued to the mat. The mat is not used over underfloor heating; where a project has both, tell us and the build-up is designed differently. In both cases the adhesive, the flat substrate and the moisture testing in our installation guide are what keep the floor silent for its life. The full build-up and installation sequence for the mat is in our multi-storey and commercial guide.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my timber floor creak?
Almost always because it is floated: the boards flex into the underlay and the joints work loose. A 20mm board glued to the substrate does not creak.
Does Marchand flooring sound hollow?
No. It is glued down with no air gap beneath it, so it feels and sounds like a solid timber floor.
Can engineered oak go in an apartment?
Yes. Marchand flooring over its 3mm acoustic mat was tested at the University of Auckland at ΔLw = 11 dB improvement in impact sound insulation. Give us your body corporate's target and we will confirm the system against it.
Can Marchand flooring be floated to reduce noise?
No. Floating is what causes creaks and hollow sound, and it is not an approved installation for our board. Impact noise to the floor below is addressed with the acoustic mat, glued.
Is the acoustic mat needed on a ground-floor slab?
No. On a ground floor with no room beneath, the flooring is glued directly to the primed slab.
Can the acoustic mat be used with underfloor heating?
No. Where an upper floor has underfloor heating and an acoustic requirement, the build-up is designed with us at specification stage.
Last reviewed September 2026.
