Carpet vs. 3mm Soundstop · buy & hold

Every time you replace carpet, you buy its sound control again. Every time you replace it with LVT, you throw that sound control away.

Carpet is a consumable: it goes in, gets cleaned at every move-out, and comes out again every few years. 3mm Soundstop is a glue-down floor with the acoustic pad built in. You buy it once. Set your property below and the numbers update.

Soundstop pays for itself in

—

versus carpet, same square footage

Saved over 10 years

—

whole property, before any lost-rent credit

Extra cost on day one

—

Soundstop installed + prep, minus carpet installed

Cumulative cost, whole property

Installed cost on day one, then every year of replacement, cleaning and repairs.

Carpet3mm Soundstop

Year by year, per square foot and whole property
YearCarpet $/SFSoundstop $/SFCarpet totalSoundstop totalSoundstop ahead by

Installed pricing

What the owner pays, per square foot and per square yard

Material and labor, installed, through a general contractor. Floor prep is charged to Soundstop only; carpet needs none. Carpet is shown per square yard (how it's bought) and per square foot (how it's compared). Type over any number with your own bid.

3mm Soundstop glue down built-in acoustic pad

Installed priceMaterial, adhesive and labor
/SF
Floor prep before glue-downPatching or skim coat so the plank bonds flat. Carpet hides a rough subfloor; LVT doesn't. One time, day one.
/SF
Day-one cost, installed + prep
Plank repairs each yearShare of the floor where planks are swapped, as % of installed price
%
Replacement during the holdNot needed during a typical hold period.
$0.00

Carpet + pad stretch-in, 6-lb rebond pad

Installed priceCarpet, pad and labor. Edit either box.
/SF
/SY
Tear-out at each replacementOld carpet and pad out. Day-one tear-out is the same for both floors and is left out.
/SF
Cleaning at move-outHot-water extraction
/SF
Each replacement costsInstalled price + tear-out

1 square yard = 9 square feet. Default prices: Typical installed price, including GC and flooring contractor margins, for comparison only. Your bids will vary. Based on projects of 150,000 SF and up, November 2026. Day-one tear-out of an existing floor is the same for both and is left out.

Why Soundstop and not any LVT

The pad is built in, so the rating stays

Carpet and pad give an upper-floor apartment its impact-sound rating for free. Pull the carpet and put down ordinary glue-down LVT and that rating drops unless you add a separate underlayment and a second labor pass. 3mm Soundstop was tested by Intertek with the pad already in it.

STC · airborne

61

Voices, TV, music through the floor

IIC · impact

56

Footsteps and dropped objects

HIIC · high-frequency impact

68

The quiet people actually hear

Tested assembly 1, report R5773.02-113-11-R0: 3mm Soundstop glue down on an 18" open-web truss assembly with no separate sound mat. STC 61 / IIC 56 / HIIC 68. Intertek Building & Construction, York PA, ASTM E90 / E492, issued 08/28/2024.
Tested assembly 2, report R5772.04-113-11-R0: the same assembly with a separate sound mat added. STC 60 / IIC 59.
Lab values for the assemblies tested; field results vary. Results are for 3mm Soundstop only.

Sources

Every number, and where it came from

Soundstop installed $4.75/SF — Typical installed price, including GC and flooring contractor margins, for comparison only. Your bids will vary. Projects of 150,000+ SF, November 2026. Material, adhesive and glue-down labor.

Floor prep $1.25/SF — AFC estimate for primer and a full skim coat before glue-down, set deliberately high. Patching alone runs $0.25–$0.50; a self-leveling pour runs higher. Charged to Soundstop only.

Carpet installed $3.75/SF ($33.75/SY) — same channel and project size. Carpet, 6-lb rebond pad and stretch-in labor by national multifamily contractors; no floor prep needed.

Replacement timing — "whole floor at once" replaces every unit when the carpet reaches the end of its cycle and counts no replacement in the final year of the hold. "Spread out" replaces 1 ÷ cycle of the floor every year, the pattern on a property with units at every age.

Tear-out $0.25/SF — low end of the $0.25–$1.00/SF range for wall-to-wall carpet removal (College Hunks Hauling Junk, Feb 2026).

Move-out cleaning $0.35/SF — about $210 for a 600 SF unit; hot-water extraction runs $100–$310 per job (Fixr, Jan 2025).

Plank repairs 1.5% per year — AFC estimate.

Turnover 47% — National Apartment Association, Survey of Operating Income & Expenses, 46.8% average; cited in NAA Operational Resource "Apartment Turnover," March 2025. The same source puts one move-out at $1,800 conservatively.

Carpet life 5 years — landlord guidance clusters at 5–7 years for apartments, 3–5 for luxury and high-turnover units (Bay Property Management Group; Texas BMG). Adjustable above.

Acoustics — Intertek reports listed above. No claim is made for any other thickness or product.

Estimates for discussion, not a quote. Replace any input with your own bids and the page recalculates.

We'll run your property's numbers

Send your unit count, square footage and current carpet bids, and we'll put your property through this comparison.

Call (512) 503-2106info@advancedflooringc.com