Dear Rubber Flooring Experts,
I’ve got a couple of problems on my hands. First of all, my treadmill is scratching my hardwood floor. Whenever I run vigorously on higher speeds, my treadmill inches across the floor, scuffing the hardwood. It’s not really a problem when I walk on the treadmill.
The second problem is that the noise and vibrations from the treadmill are driving me nuts. The hardwood that covers the subfloor must have been installed poorly because it rattles whenever I use the treadmill. I really need to get rid of the noises! I don’t want the occupant of the floor below me to complain about the noise either. Any ideas?
Kind regards,
Hannah K. from France
Dear Hannah K,
You’ve sure got a handful of problems to deal with. Fortunately, you can solve all of them by simply unrolling a good solid treadmill mat! Placing a rubber mat between your treadmill and hardwood floor serves as a cushion for both the machine and the floor. The natural shock-absorbent qualities of rubber disperse the impact of the treadmill throughout the mat instead of your hardwood floor. Rubber treadmill mats also provide excellent traction for your machine. This ensures that your treadmill won’t slide across your floor and cause costly damages. It is important that the quality of the mat be good. Less expensive foam or thinner flimsy products are not worth wasting time with!
When you set up your treadmill on top of a treadmill mat, noise reduction and vibration reduction result because of the same shock-absorbent quality that cushions your hardwood floor. Now the shock is being distributed across the footage of the mat rather than the four small treadmill feet. This allows vibration and noise to disperse across a wider area and lessens the noticeable effect, the fact that you have creaky floorboards only adds more noise. A treadmill mat reduces the noise and vibration by absorbing and dispersing them throughout the area of the mat.
Rubber treadmill mats are affordable and a great long-term value due to their durability. If you end up moving out of your apartment to another location, the mat can simply be rolled up to be taken with you wherever you go. You won’t have to worry about bothering tenants with anymore noisy commotion, unless you throw a party in your apartment! In that case, let me know via e-mail so we could discuss rubber flooring options! We feel so strongly about our heavier and thicker noise reducing treadmill mats that we think it will outlive your machine.
Best of Luck
The Rubber Floor Experts