 Good afternoon, everybody. Happy end of the week. Thank you for joining us again for another week in addition of our condo insider that's put on by Hawaii Council of Community Associations. So today with me, I have a distinguished guest from ProSource Wholesale. They're over by the Bougainville area by where Target is, right? Correct. Yeah. And he's gonna educate us about floor sound barrier ratings. We're gonna get a good education on that. Very informative. And some of the information he has is I really think a lot of condos can put this into their design guidelines, whether it's a single family or even especially condos, because that's the biggest complaints about the noise from the unit above. But with the information he has in here, a lot of the condos should be able to adopt these into their guidelines on flooring installations. So Brent, welcome to the show. Hi. Nice to have you here with us. Thank you for having me. So Brent has been with ProSource for about five years now. So why don't you give us a little tidbit about the impact installation class, also known as IIC? Sure, gotcha. So we're gonna go a little bit more than into the presentation, but IIC, you probably hear it all over, never knew what it stood for, but it does stand for impact installation class in it. It's generally a standardized number that you can kind of work into your requirements in order to mitigate sound from the top floor going down to the bottom floor. So we'll get into that once we start the presentation, but having a standardized number is an easy way to just measure different requirements in your home and place that for a harmonious living place into the harmonious dwelling. So far, I mean, you've been there for quite a while, for quite a few years. Is this one of the common issues that when you have customers coming in, they talk about certain requirements they have to meet, or is it something that you people automatically tell them about putting in the underlayment for the sound? Absolutely. So one thing when our guests come in, we do pre-qualifying questions. We ask them about their project. Every time they talk about a condo association or they live in a condo, first questions we ask is, is there any requirements, building permits, anything like that? And then very specifically the sound requirements or did they give you some sort of IIC number to reach? So that's very, very common. We see it almost daily. So explain to us how you get, how a company establishes their sound rating for the product around us. Sure, absolutely. So sound ratings, a lot of our manufacturers underlayment the vinyl products, they have a IIC rating that's onto their material and then that can be shared to the guests through resources online. But how they get to that number is they basically use a tapping machine or a standardized machine that taps from the top floor and it goes to the bottom floor. That bottom floor, there is either a worker or a mic setup that is going to record or listen to all the tapping from the top floor. They then put that number into a standardized formula and they spit out a IIC number or a standard number. Cool. So let's pull up the next slide. There's like a little machine. They have different testing methods. So I'm so sorry, I'm not able to see the slides. So one with the machine and they're in a room, but there's a machine that they put onto the floor and it creates a tapping sound and that measures that rating. That's correct, yeah. So the tapping sound is basically very, very simple. Rumentary just taps on the top floor down to the bottom floor. And actually this sound rating, that machine is probably not just for flooring. They can use it for different types of, like in the picture, they have water pipes, you know. So I'm sure they could probably use it for the same thing, right? To see how much noise the water makes going down that pipe. Because I've been in condos before and I go, I can hear the water in the walls, you know. Sometimes it's kind of like when you first go in there, you're like, whoa, is it coming down? And the big question that was asked to me the other day, I was telling you that this question came up about these ratings last weekend and the cost to do these ratings. You have any idea what that is? Yeah, so it's in a little bit on the next slides, but what the costs for these are very, very expensive. So again, a lot of these manufacturers kind of pre-test it just to, because they know it's a selling point for a lot of the owners, but when someone were to request a test, they would have to go to a third party. So they don't go to the manufacturers. They don't go to us. They would go to a third party request a sound test. It's a standardized test that they do and it's very, very costly. So it can be upwards of $20,000 give or take. It's quite expensive. Okay. Let's pull up slide number five where has a sound rating. So for laminate and wood floors, there's two, you have an IIC and an STC. What is that? That's correct. So as you see here in the example, there are many different ratings. This particular set of ratings is from our, one of our underlimbs that we carry here. As you can see the, there's IIC listed for different materials, even more specifically. So for laminate, luxury vinyl tile or LVT, as you commonly heard, as well as ceramic tile, there is different IICs for different materials, as well as STC that's on there. So there's a good illustration a little bit later, but STC is basically the sound in or around the room versus the sound from the top floor to the bottom floor. So when we talked earlier about, you know, the little girl next door playing at, you know, 9 p.m., 10 p.m. and she's walking on the floor, the STC rating is going to be that magic number that you have to pay attention to when trying to mitigate the sound from the room next door. Oh, I see. So let's talk about the underlimbs. I know when you usually go to and by flooring, they're always talking about the underlimbs. So it's really the underlayment that really gives you that IIC rating or prevents it. Correct. Yes, the underlayment is usually the mitigator if the planks don't have it. In installations today, vinyl planks usually have an attached underlayment, which has an IIC, a pretty good one, although a lot of condos, in my experience, want it higher than that. So in our instance, we do have our material. We have an underlayment that is approved to go under there and that can boost up the IICs to the requirements of the condo associations. And there are different types of underlayments out there. Generally, there are three types. There is foam, also cork, and rubber. So with that, there's different benefits in those three. Foam is generally widely available. It's very inexpensive. It's light, so it's very easy to install. And probably like 80% of our guests use some sort of foam underlayment. There also is cork underlayment. It's a little bit more of a premium product, but it's good for the environment. So if your guests are environmental conscious, then it's a good bet. It is a little bit thicker, a little bit heavier, so it's a little bit harder to install as well. There's also rubber underlayments out there. The really thick ones, I think you've seen them. Sometimes the guests use them as gym mats as well, or putting it on gym equipment onto there. That also helps with sound mitigations from the top floor down to the bottom floor. But very thick, very heavy, harder to install, harder to kind of fit into your certain areas. There are a lot of underlayments out there that work differently with different materials. So we always recommend to talk to one of us, talk to me, let me be a resource. And we can kind of talk you through that process of finding the right underlayment for the right area of the home. Okay, so on our next slide, number seven, you mentioned it earlier. It describes the differences between the IIC and STC. So what is that? Correct, so this is a great illustration. This illustration is a multi-level dwelling. The top floor, we have Mary that's tap dancing at three in the morning. The sound is going to be going down, and what IIC measures is the sound mitigation from the top floor to the bottom floor. An example of STC, if she's doing her midnight tap dancing, the sound is going to be bouncing off the walls, off the ceilings, and that's going to be the sound inside. So STC, or a higher STC level, will prevent the noise from bouncing inside the home. Very similar to IIC, the lower of the ratings means there's more transfer of sound, meaning it's going to be louder. The higher ratings up to 100 are going to be the, you know, it's a better insulator or better mitigator of sound from the top floor to the bottom floor. Okay, so one question that came up to me last Saturday when I was talking to some condo people was, you know, when they're talking about, we were just talking out loud and, you know, like how does, you know, about how a condo would put their policy and procedures together regarding flooring installation, whether it be carpet or hardwood or vinyl or tile. One question was asked, well, how do we know what rating they bought? If we say we want the highest rating, like 100, how does the condo know that they actually bought that 100 rating? So I had suggested I go, well, maybe have them provide a copy of the invoice. Does the invoice even show that rating? Our invoice doesn't show, but typically when, that's a very, very common question to ask for them to provide the IC rating. A lot of the products actually have it in their spec sheets. So if, you know, you put into your requirements, please require the guests to get a spec sheet of the product or material to them. So not only does the vinyl plank tile, they sometimes have spec sheets to provide that, but the underlayment always does. The underlayment is the spec sheet that will have that IIC STC to meet the requirements. Some guests, or excuse me, some condo associates also require the material that you're going to be submitting as well to hold on hand. I always say it's a good idea for, you know, once a underlayment is approved for the condo association based off the IC to either keep a sample, keep a spec sheet, because you're going to have residents asking in the future, hey, what underlayment was previously approved or what underlayment meets your requirements. And you know, you have something on the side, say this, this, you know, you can talk to my guy, Brett, he has this over here, or you can spec this from anywhere and get it, get it to you so you can, you know, finish your project or have the material to finish your project. In the early line of town association, some of the paint companies have their array of approved paint colors. Gotcha, yeah. You can go in there and they're like, okay, these are the only colors approved. It's a little stringent, but again, it's, it's, when you have, you know, tried and true products, you know that that's going to work with everybody. It's going to be harmonious to everybody. And it just makes everybody in the building happy. So do some of these come with performance warranties? That's a great question. I don't think that there's any performance warranties. You can, I think as far as like, you know, sure firing the, the sound mitigation, you can request like the testing methods or the actual test is very, very complicated, but you can read through that that was tested by a third party to have some understanding. I'm always a big proponent of real, real world tests and to put it down and to put the material and kind of do a real world test. And again, if it is good or if it is approved, then you can say, hey, this is good going forward. If you just use this with a specific type of vinyl or, you know, vinyl with this type of IAC, I think it should work going forward. What about the installers? Do you use, do you have a select few that you normally use or suggest that are familiar with the installation methods? Is it just a standard installation? It's fairly standard in all honesty. The underlayments that we have, especially the foam one, like I mentioned, it's very light. You can, you know, in a hundred square foot roll, you can carry like five or six of them and it'd be fine. When you're laying it out, very, very simple. Some have moisture mitigation, mitigation properties as well, but you know, just the normal acoustical mitigators. You just roll it out, don't overlap them, just kind of make them taut. There's like sometimes there's seam tape like that. They usually do come with an instruction manual and it's very, very easy. I can install it and it's saying that's saying a lot. Okay. Okay, so what is the best rating for, well, here's a question. You have wood flooring and then you have like the engineered type wood flooring, those different types. So, depending on the type of wood flooring, would it also be a different IC rating that you need to put for the underlayment or they're pretty much the same? That's right. The great question. There's every single material does have a different IC rating, even when you're stacking it with different underlayments as well. Generally, if they did like this previous slide that you saw, they'll say wood and it has the IC. So there's like a general kind of ideal for that. But, you know, going back to how I guess working with the material versus the area versus the underlayment, there is a specific wood underlayment that you would put a like a plywood board and the underlayment with the wood and it boosts up the IC quite high. Versus if you just use just, you know, our underlayment, it might be lower for the wood. So again, knowing your project, knowing the material, knowing the area you're going to be putting down and why or how much mitigation of sound you're going to need is very dependent by project is very specific. So it can get complicated that way. Again, speaking to someone that works with it every single day, the manufacturers, even the installers at times because they're very familiar with working with countless that they can help that process of maybe standardizing, you know, requirements or just explaining to your guess what they'll need in order to complete their project. And I also kind of need to know how their flooring is like how thick the concrete slab of the floor is does that make a difference. So they would kind of need to know some of that and hopefully they have that information available. Because I would think the thicker the slab maybe the better it is. Generally, you know, we found in cases that's not always true. But when when they're giving those test results. It's very, very detailed in what they tested with what kind of subfloor they tested with the material on there. Even just like the sometimes they'll test one product for different, you know, six inch slab eight inch slab drop ceilings. They've been put like the insulator that would be in that drop ceiling and what that did very scientific. Again, they try to boil it down to that I see number to be a little bit more understandable for common folks like myself. So at your location you have several different types of brands and with that they have also the different types of. It depends on the type of application flooring application you're going to use right that you would probably have a different brand that might be better than another brand. That's that's correct. But you know the trend right now I think vinyl is the most popular. We're seeing an influx of laminate nowadays. Hardwood still tends to be more of a luxury item or product to purchase but all of them do have specific underlayments that will help mitigate in different ways for different areas as well. So vinyl is that that one that looks like wood. That's correct. Yeah, it's, it's 100% waterproof product that looks like wood it's floating so it's a very easy install very inexpensive labor prices and probably 80% of the market today is purchasing vinyl as a as a hard surface option. Okay, yeah, I'm removing three layers of those old peel and sticks off of the house and I'm like, this is horrible. We still see those around you know there's been a lot of improvement since then, and it's an ever evolving industry and we see new material lines all the time and products all the time. Okay, so we're nearing our end so you have like two for six different brands that you represent at pro source. So, let's say a board member came in and that person was tasked with trying to set up their specs. Are you able to help them put that together. Thank you for asking that so you know, I should have prefaced this I'm not a lawyer or I'm not a. Or you can actually help them put the board together of this type of a man and you know, something like that, you know, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So again we work with condos associations clients that have sound requirements we have. We have like dozens and dozens of projects that needed that and, you know, even finding something for a specific condo because every unit should be the same. Or very, very similar finding a product that will work from, you know, the bottom floor all the way to the top floor with the different type of materials. So on that before in the past, we put together a design board like you mentioned with, you know, the underlayment the planks to present and even do a little bit testings like we have speaking of STC like you mentioned. We have a new product that helps a lot with the sound in around the home being the STC so if you still if you're on the bottom floor you don't have a, you know, a lower a lower floor. So it's a product that will help with the sound in around the home, just to make it harmonious and peaceful for for everyday living. Okay, great. Oh, this is kind of kind of cool with the different sound sound barriers and different applications for that. And also, again, for to recap it depends on the type of flooring you're going to put in hardwood versus the engineered. Even the vinyl plank wood looking flooring that it will vary depending on the type of actual flooring that you're going to put in. I didn't realize even tile. I just thought was then set tile. And the tile can get very loud and again, we do have products to do a bunch of plethora thing we're talking about sound now to mitigate sound but there's also products to mitigate cracking movement of it. To get too cold we have a warming warming underlayment so there's tons of things you can do with your flooring and even to put underneath your floor just to make it a better daily living for yourself. Great. Okay, Brent, I want to thank you again for being on the show today. And also being able to and being available to help these condos to help set their specs, at least let them be aware of the different ratings helping to educate them. And, you know, even being put a sample board up together. And again, but then also that's going to be also whatever the condo does typically it will be subject to an attorney review but at least you've got them get them going so that at least don't just look at that board right there go down to pro source but this is the type and at least they'll have pictures and the samples up there that they can feel in touch. That the condos can have a copy that's inside their office, and then you can maintain a copy for your records as well. I really appreciate you taking the time out. And look forward to working with you in the future to if you come up with another kind of product for a condo. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody for joining us today for condo insider and look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks on another subject that we have coming up. And even just as great on financials and reserves for condo boards. That's going to be next week. So I'll see everybody again next week. Thank you Brett. Mahalo.