Objections to hard flooring are never about the timber. They're about what the neighbour below will hear.
No obligation. Takes 30 seconds.
Floor Sanding and Polishing Sydney connects Sydney and greater Sydney property owners with qualified, connects Sydney property owners with licensed local floor sanders for acoustic underlay. Tell us the rough floor area and whether you're in a house or an apartment and we'll match it to a licensed contractor covering your suburb. Firm per-square-metre price after an inspection.
Most Sydney flooring by-laws borrow the figure the National Construction Code sets for floors between apartments: impact sound of **Ln,w no more than 62** measured in a laboratory, or **LnT,w no more than 62** tested in the building itself. Airborne sound is handled separately, at Rw + Ctr of at least 50.
One thing worth knowing if you're reading older material: the **Ci correction term was removed from the Code in 2016**, so any specification still quoting 'Ln,w + Ci' is a decade out of date.
A product's stated rating comes from a laboratory assembly. Your actual building is a different structure — concrete slab thickness, ceiling type below, the works — so a field test can come back differently.
If your by-law calls for field testing (LnT,w), budget for it: $400 to $1,200. If it accepts the lab rating, the product's report is enough.
The rating belongs to the **assembly** — underlay plus floor plus slab — not to the underlay alone. Swapping in a cheaper underlay of the same thickness does not carry the rating across with it.
Compliant acoustic underlay runs $25 to $60 a square metre supplied and laid. It's a real cost and it is not the place to economise, because the consequence of failing is taking the floor up.
Rigid contact between the floor and the wall or skirting bridges the isolation and undoes the underlay. So do fixings driven through it.
This is why it's worth using someone who installs in strata regularly. The product is the easy part; the detailing at the perimeter is where compliant floors fail.
Sydney.
Where this job typically sits. Access is usually a bigger cost driver than size.
| Job | Indicative price | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Sand and polish, per square metre | $40 – $70 /m² | Sydney rates run above the national average. Covers sanding plus coats. |
| Typical 3-bedroom home (~110m²) | $4,400 – $7,500 | Whole floor, sanded and finished. Condition drives the range. |
| Typical 2-bedroom apartment (~70m²) | $2,800 – $4,900 | Before any acoustic underlay, which is a separate line. |
| Single room (~15m²) | $800 – $1,400 | Small jobs carry proportionally more setup. |
| Acoustic underlay, supplied and laid | $25 – $60 /m² | Strata work. The test report matters as much as the product. |
| Acoustic test report | $400 – $1,200 | Field testing to demonstrate compliance where a by-law requires it. |
| Board replacement | $100 – $220 per board | Baltic pine and old hardwood profiles are both hard to match. |
| Extra coat of finish | $9 – $15 /m² | Three coats is standard; a high-traffic hallway may want four. |
| Parquetry restoration | $80 – $130 /m² | Slower and more skilled than strip flooring. |
| Recoat only (no full sand) | $20 – $35 /m² | Where the finish is worn but the timber is sound. Far cheaper. |
Prices are indicative only and usually quoted per square metre. What a floor costs depends on its condition, the timber, how many coats it needs and whether boards have to be replaced. In a strata building, acoustic underlay and testing add to it. You get a firm price after an inspection.
The core job — taking a tired timber floor back to bare wood.
Read more →Getting owners corporation approval before the floor goes in — in the right order.
Read more →The softwood under most inner-Sydney terraces, and why it's treated differently.
Read more →The finish itself — water-based or solvent, and how many coats.
Read more →Tell us the suburb and the floor area and we'll get it to the right person.
Call 0468 165 354