Apartment Timber Flooring in Box Hill: Rules, Underlay, Boards

A timber-look floor in a Box Hill apartment is quite achievable, provided things are done in the right order. Start with your owners corporation’s rules, because most buildings require approval for hard floors and set an acoustic standard the floor has to meet. Then choose the board and the underlay together, since the underlay does most of the acoustic work. On a concrete slab, both 12 mm click laminate and 15 mm engineered oak are good options, and you should expect some grinding or levelling once the carpet comes up.

Why apartments are a different job

Box Hill has a lot of apartments, from high-rise towers around the station and shopping centre to smaller three- and four-storey blocks on the side streets. A floor in one of them isn’t only your decision. Your downstairs neighbour hears every footstep that a hard floor carries, which is why almost every building has rules about it.

Our Box Hill timber flooring page covers the suburb’s houses and townhouses as well. This guide sticks to apartments and walks through the process in the order you should do it.

Step one: get the rules and the approval process

Ask your strata manager or building manager for the current owners corporation rules and any flooring policy. Read the parts about floors, noise and renovations. Most will cover some of these:

• whether written approval is required before hard flooring goes in
• an acoustic performance standard for the floor, usually stated as a rating the finished floor must meet
• what documents you have to submit, such as product details for the board and underlay
• permitted hours for noisy work like grinding
• lift bookings, lift protection and where tradespeople can park or unload
• rubbish removal, since old carpet can’t go down the building’s chute

This guide doesn’t quote acoustic figures, because each building sets its own, and the number that matters is the one in your rules. Bring them to the showroom or the measure and we will choose a board and underlay combination to suit, and provide the product information you need for the application.

Please allow time for approval, as some committees meet monthly. We recommend lodging the application before you lock in an install date.

Why the underlay matters more than the board

Footstep noise travels through the slab to the apartment below. What stops most of it is a layer between your floor and the concrete that absorbs the impact. That is the acoustic underlay. For a floating floor it sits loose under the boards. For a glued floor, there are acoustic systems designed to go under boards that are stuck down.

This has two practical consequences. First, you can’t pick the board and hope the underlay will work out; they are chosen together. Second, we recommend against swapping the underlay for a cheaper one late in the job. If the building ever tests the floor after a complaint, the underlay is what gets judged.

For a wider look at noise in apartments, see our guide to soundproof flooring for apartments.

Laminate or engineered oak on a slab

These are the two floors most Box Hill apartment owners end up choosing between. Hybrid is a third option: our hybrid range has a 2 mm acoustic underlay attached to each board, and we can give you samples to compare. Your building’s acoustic rules still decide what is allowed.

	Laminate	Engineered oak
What it is	Printed timber look with a 4D embossed-in-register texture	Real European oak, 4 mm wear layer
Thickness	12 mm	15 mm
Board size	2260 × 236 mm	1900 × 190 mm, or 2200 × 220 mm wide board
How it goes down	Floating, Välinge 5G click, over underlay	Tongue and groove, usually glued to the slab with an acoustic system under it
Can it be sanded later	No	Generally yes
Best for	Investment apartments, tighter budgets, quick turnaround	Owner-occupiers staying long term

If you are renting the apartment out, laminate is usually the sensible choice. It is hard-wearing and quick to lay, so the apartment is off the market for less time. Pale Oak and Loft Grey are two colours that suit smaller apartments with light walls. If you live there and plan to stay, engineered oak feels and sounds like timber because the top layer is timber, and it can be refinished later.

One thing to know about floating floors in apartments: without the right underlay, a floating floor can sound a little hollow in the room itself when you walk on it. A good underlay deals with that too, which is another reason to choose it carefully.

What happens when the carpet comes up

Apartment slabs under carpet are nearly always rougher than owners expect. You may find ridges of old adhesive, patches where services were run, and a slab that dips towards the balcony or the bathroom. Carpet hides all of that, but laminate and timber will not.

So the slab gets checked with a straight edge, high spots are ground and dips are filled with levelling compound, which then needs time to cure. Grinding is noisy and dusty, which is why building work hours matter for the schedule. We look at this during the measure so it is priced in, and if something unexpected turns up once the carpet is off, we tell you before doing extra work. There is more on this on our floor removal and subfloor page.

One of our customers had the carpet removed from their apartment and new boards laid, and mentioned in their review that everything was left clean and tidy at the end. In an apartment, where the corridor and lift are shared, that part matters to the neighbours as much as to you.

The details that catch people out

Balcony door and bathroom thresholds

The sliding door track and the bathroom entry are fixed heights. The new floor has to finish neatly against both. Check the door track in particular, because a floor that ends up higher than the track looks wrong and can catch water.

Doors

Internal doors hung over carpet usually clear a timber floor, but not always. Front entry doors in apartments are often fire-rated, and trimming them may not be allowed. Ask your building manager before assuming it can be done.

Kitchen and robes

Decide whether the floor runs into built-in wardrobes and up to the kitchen kicks, and check the dishwasher can still be pulled out once the floor is in.

Living with a hard floor in an apartment

Most complaints between neighbours start after the floor is in, not during the install. A few simple habits help keep relations with neighbours good and keep the floor looking its best.

Put felt pads under every chair, stool and table leg. Dining chairs dragged across a floor are loud downstairs and leave fine scratches up top. Rugs in the living area and beside the bed soak up a lot of footstep noise and give you somewhere soft to stand. Taking shoes off at the door helps most of all, because hard heels are the sound people downstairs notice most.

Water is the other thing to watch. Apartments put the kitchen, laundry cupboard and balcony door all within a few metres of each other, and laminate and timber should both be kept away from standing water. Please wipe up spills promptly and clean with a damp mop rather than a wet one. Keep a mat inside the balcony door so rain and pot-plant water are not left sitting on the boards. Our care page has more on day-to-day cleaning.

A realistic order of events

1. Get the owners corporation rules and flooring policy.
2. Look at boards and underlay together at the showroom, with the rules in hand.
3. Book a measure so the slab, thresholds and doors are checked and the quote is itemised.
4. Submit the approval application with the product information.
5. Once approved, book the lift and the install date within permitted hours.
6. Clear the rooms. Install, clean up and removal of old carpet follow.

Next step: bring your building rules in

A good place to start is to bring your owners corporation rules to the Camberwell showroom and look at laminate and engineered oak side by side. Then book a free measure and quote for your apartment. You’re welcome to call us on 1300 690 160; please let us know which building you are in.