MP Global Products introduces Sound Buffer, a high-performing universal acoustic underlayment that offers full subfloor coverage while soothing impact sound and floor to ceiling noise. Its carefully engineered properties enable flooring installers to use one SKU for many types of hard-surface floors in residential and commercial projects.
Made from 100 percent virgin latex rubber, Sound Buffer is approved for use under luxury vinyl tiles and planks, laminate, engineered wood, and hardwood flooring, and can be floated, nailed, stapled, or single- or double-glued. If single glued, it can turn a double-glue installation into a floating floor.
Providing excellent value, the competitively priced Sound Buffer has strong physical properties, including 1.2-millimeter thickness, a density of 25 pounds per cubic foot, and a compression set of 16 percent—a carefully engineered combination that helps minimize impressions and indentations that can occur with luxury vinyl flooring. It also has a thermal resistance of 0.205, and anti-microbial properties.
Sound tests have achieved excellent ratings. These include:
- IIC Test: 6-inch concrete subfloor with no ceiling assembly with luxury vinyl planks floor covering, result: 52, a rating that exceeds the standard for high-rise installations.
- IIC Test: 6-inch concrete subfloor with a suspended ceiling assembly with luxury vinyl planks floor covering, result: 68.
- STC Test: 6-inch concrete subfloor with a suspended ceiling with luxury vinyl planks floor covering, result: 64.
- STC Test: 6-inch concrete subfloor with no ceiling assembly with luxury vinyl planks floor covering, result: 52.
Sound Buffer offers a compression (ASTM D 1055-97 (22h, 70C) of 16 percent that works nicely under LVF and, unlike the compression percentage of most underlayments suitable for LVF, is hearty enough to install under floating wood and laminate floors, as well.
Sound Buffer also carries Green Label Plus Certification for Low-Emitting Materials from the Carpet and Rug Institute and can contribute to earning LEED Credit EQ 4.3 (low-emitting materials), LEED Credit MRc5.1-5.2 for Regional Content 20-30 percent; and LEED Credit IEQp3 Minimum Acoustical Performance. And post-consumer use, it is 100 percent recyclable.
Sound Buffer is available in 36-inch-wide 200-square-foot rolls, with or without seam tape.