The worst version of this project goes like this. Somebody buys a condo off Six Forks, hires a flooring crew, has beautiful new LVP down by Friday, and gets a letter from the management company three weeks later telling them to take it out.
That happens. Not often, but often enough that we ask about the association before we ask about the floor. A single family house in Five Points has no gatekeeper. A unit in a North Hills building has a declaration, an architectural review process, and a neighbor underneath you who will absolutely file a complaint if your dog’s nails start clicking overhead at six in the morning.
Here’s how the approval side actually works, what the sound specs mean, and the specific reasons submittals come back rejected.
Start with the documents, not the showroom
Before you look at a single sample, get three things.
Your declaration and covenants. These are recorded documents, and you can pull them yourself through the Wake County Register of Deeds, which maintains restrictive covenants along with deeds and plats. Your closing package should have them too, though people rarely know where that folder went.
Your association’s rules and regulations. Separate from the declaration, usually shorter, and this is where hard surface flooring restrictions normally live. Ask the management company directly.
The architectural review application, if there is one. Some buildings want a form, product documentation, and a contractor certificate of insurance before anyone touches the floor.
We’re flooring contractors and not attorneys, so read the documents yourself or have someone qualified read them. But we can tell you what the flooring clauses usually say and what they mean in practice.
What IIC and STC actually measure
Two numbers show up in almost every hard surface flooring rule. They measure different things and people mix them up constantly.
STC is Sound Transmission Class. It covers airborne noise, so voices, television, music. Walls matter more than floors for this one.
IIC is Impact Insulation Class. It covers impact noise, which means footsteps, dropped keys, a chair leg dragging across the room. This is the number your downstairs neighbor cares about, and it’s the one your flooring choice actually moves.
The building code side is straightforward enough. North Carolina’s building code follows the International Building Code, which sets a minimum of 50 for both STC and IIC between dwelling units in multifamily construction, with 45 accepted when the rating comes from field testing rather than a lab. Associations frequently require more than that. We’ve seen North Hills specs asking for IIC 55 or higher for any hard surface going in above another unit.
Two things about those numbers trip people up.
The rating belongs to the whole floor and ceiling assembly, not to the underlayment. When an underlayment manufacturer publishes IIC 62, that number came from a specific test assembly, usually a six inch concrete slab with a suspended drywall ceiling below. Put the identical product over wood joists in a stick built townhome and the result is different. Sometimes dramatically.
Lab ratings and field ratings are not interchangeable. Field tests get reported as FIIC and FSTC and they typically come in lower than lab numbers for the same assembly. If your association’s rule says field tested, a lab report will not satisfy it.
Concrete building or wood frame changes everything
North Hills has both, and the answer is not the same.
In a concrete building, the slab does most of the work. You have real mass between units, and the underlayment is handling the higher frequency impact noise that the slab doesn’t absorb. A quality acoustic membrane or a cork or rubber underlayment in the 2mm to 6mm range usually gets you where you need to be, and the numbers on the datasheet will roughly match reality because the test assembly resembles your building.
In a wood framed townhome, the assembly is joists, subfloor, and drywall below. Impact energy travels through the structure. Underlayment alone often will not hit an aggressive spec, and the honest answer is sometimes that the target isn’t reachable without work on the ceiling below, which nobody wants to hear and which is not your flooring contractor’s job to hide from you.
If your unit sits on grade with nothing beneath it, most of this goes away. Ground floor units are commonly exempt from the hard surface rules entirely. Confirm it in writing, then enjoy having an easy project.
The five reasons submittals get rejected
Missing or wrong documentation. The board wants the manufacturer’s test report showing the rating, the assembly it was tested in, and whether it’s lab or field. A marketing brochure with a number printed on it is not a test report.
Relying on the attached pad. Plenty of LVP and laminate comes with a thin foam or IXPE pad already bonded to the plank. It’s fine for comfort and it does almost nothing for an IIC spec. If the association has a number, you need a separate acoustic underlayment specified for it. This is the single most common reason a job gets stopped, and it usually happens because the retailer told the homeowner the attached pad was enough.
Substituting products mid job. You get approved for one underlayment, the supplier is out, the crew installs something similar. Now the approved documentation doesn’t describe what’s on the floor. If a complaint comes in later, you have no defense.
No contractor insurance on file. Most buildings want a certificate of general liability and workers compensation, often naming the association as additional insured. We send ours whenever it’s requested, for HOAs, builders, and property managers alike. If a contractor hesitates when you ask for this, that tells you something.
Doing the work first. Retroactive approval is not a thing you should count on. Associations can require removal, and the cost of that lands on you.
The installation details that decide whether it works
Approval gets you permission. Whether your neighbor is happy comes down to how the floor goes in, and this part gets skipped more than anything else.
Sound flanks. If the flooring makes rigid contact with the wall, the baseboard, or a fastener that reaches the structure, impact energy bypasses your underlayment entirely and travels straight into the framing. A floating floor needs a real expansion gap at every wall and vertical surface, and the acoustic underlayment should turn up at the perimeter or get an isolation strip. Baseboard and shoe molding should sit slightly off the finished floor rather than clamping it down. It’s a small amount of extra care that changes the outcome.
Floating versus glue down matters here too. Floating assemblies over a good acoustic layer generally do better on impact noise, which is why they dominate in multifamily. Glue down can work, but it needs a sound rated adhesive or membrane designed for the purpose, not standard adhesive with a hope attached.
Then there’s the subfloor. Concrete gives up moisture for a long time, and a slab that hasn’t been tested is how a floor cups the following summer. That problem shows up in newer slab construction throughout the Triangle and it doesn’t skip condos. We test before we quote. If the slab isn’t ready, we’d rather tell you in the estimate than discover it on install day.
What we’d actually put down
For most North Hills units above another unit, luxury vinyl plank over a separate acoustic underlayment is the practical answer. It’s waterproof, it handles a rental cycle, it floats cleanly, and the acoustic products for it are well documented, which makes the approval paperwork easy. If you want to think through the material choice more broadly, our LVP versus hardwood comparison covers the trade offs, and there’s a separate piece on laminate versus LVP if budget is the deciding factor.
If you want real wood, engineered is the material for a condo. It stays dimensionally stable over concrete and it floats or glues down without the framing work that solid hardwood demands. We wrote up the solid versus engineered decision in more detail.
What we’d avoid is solid hardwood nailed down in a unit above someone else. You’re fastening into the structure, which is the opposite of what you want acoustically, and in a concrete building it isn’t an option anyway.
Once it’s down, LVP is easy to keep looking right, though the wrong cleaner will dull it fast. Our vinyl care guide covers what to use and what to skip.
Timeline and cost, honestly
Budget two to six weeks for architectural approval depending on how often the board meets. Some management companies turn it around in days. Some meet monthly and you wait.
The installation itself is quick. LVP in a typical condo runs one to two days. Engineered hardwood takes longer depending on square footage and method.
On cost, LVP runs roughly $4 to $8 per square foot installed in the Triangle and engineered hardwood $7 to $12, before the acoustic underlayment, which adds to the material line. Those are starting points. We give a written fixed price after measuring in person.
Also worth asking your building about work hours, elevator reservations, and where a crew can park and load. In some North Hills buildings the logistics take more coordination than the flooring does. We’ve done enough units up there to plan around it, and the standards we bring don’t change based on which city we’re working in, which is something we’ve written about before.
Common questions
Does my HOA have to approve LVP if the old floor was already hard surface?
Usually yes, if you’re replacing the assembly. The previous owner’s approval doesn’t transfer to your installation, and the underlayment underneath is the part the association cares about. Ask before you assume you’re grandfathered.
Can you provide the sound documentation my board is asking for?
Yes. We supply manufacturer test reports for the underlayment we’re specifying, along with our certificate of insurance. Tell us the number your association requires and we’ll specify to it, or tell you honestly if your assembly can’t reach it.
My neighbor complained about noise from my existing floor. Can this be fixed without replacing it?
Sometimes. Rugs and pads help more than people expect, and a surprising amount of complaint noise comes from flanking at the perimeter rather than through the floor field. We’d want to look at how the existing floor terminates at the walls before recommending a tear out.
Are ground floor units exempt?
Frequently, but get it in writing from your management company rather than relying on what a neighbor told you.
Talk to us before you order material
If you’re in a North Hills condo or townhome and you’re not sure what your association allows, call us before you buy anything. We’ll come measure, look at the subfloor, and tell you what will pass and what won’t. If the honest answer is that your building’s spec makes the floor you want impractical, we’ll say that.
The estimate is free and we come to you.
Vilchis Hardwood Floors 237 Obie Dr, Durham, NC 27713 (919) 794-1116 Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Serving Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Wake Forest. Request a free quote or read more about our flooring services in Raleigh.
