Do Rugs Reduce Noise? Echo, Footsteps and Downstairs Neighbors

By Storied Rugs7 min read

A navy vintage Kerman rug with a rose medallion and floral border under a navy sofa, two armchairs and a wood coffee table on a herringbone oak floor, with heavy linen curtains

Yes, rugs reduce noise. A rug soaks up the echo in a room with hard floors and softens the sound of footsteps, for you and for anyone living below. It works best on sharp, high sounds like voices, heels and scraping chairs, and least on deep thuds and bass. A large rug on a good pad does far more than a small rug on bare boards.

Living room seen from a high corner, a large cream Kashan rug covered in rows of small paisleys covers most of a dark walnut floor under a linen sofa and two armchairs — A Kashan, 9 feet by 13 feet. Its cream field is covered in rows of small paisleys, the botteh. A rug this size covers most of a hard floor, which is where most of a room’s echo bounces from.

Two kinds of noise, and what a rug does to each

It helps to separate the noise you hear inside a room from the noise that travels out of it. Echo is sound bouncing around the room you are in. Impact noise is the thump of a foot or a dropped toy, carried through the floor into the room below. A rug deals with both, but not equally.

The carpet industry’s own test bulletin is blunt about the first kind. Well chosen, carpet absorbs airborne noise about as well as many purpose-made acoustic materials.^[1] The reason is simple. A pile layer lets sound waves in instead of bouncing them back into the room.^[2] A bare wood, tile or concrete floor is one large mirror for sound, and a rug turns part of that mirror off.

Echo: why a bare room sounds loud

An empty room with hard floors, bare walls and big windows rings. Voices carry, the television sounds harsh, and a dropped spoon seems to go on for a second. Soft things fix this. Sofas, cushions, upholstered chairs and carpets all cut down the extra reverberation and loudness in a room.^[3] The floor is usually the biggest hard surface you have, so a rug is the quickest single change.

Be realistic about what a rug absorbs. The pile does its best work on high-pitched sound.^[2] How much it absorbs depends on the type of pile, its height and how densely it is packed.^[2] The effect of the fiber itself is harder to pin down, and researchers find it hard to separate from the rest.^[2] Nearly all our rugs are low pile, so on their own they absorb less than a deep, plush carpet. A pad underneath helps make up for it, which we come back to below.

Coverage matters too. A small rug in the middle of a large bare floor treats a small patch of it. In a long open room, the rug that makes the biggest difference is the one that covers most of the floor while leaving a border of boards. Our post on placing a rug in an open-plan space shows how to size one there.

Footsteps and the neighbors downstairs

Here a rug helps more than most people expect. Putting carpet over a floor that used to be bare is one of the changes people below notice at once.^[1] Heels, chair legs and toys click through the ceiling far less.

The limit is the deep sound. Walls and floors pass low-pitched sound far more easily than high-pitched sound.^[1] Footfalls themselves make annoying low-pitched sounds that are hard even to measure.^[1] So a rug turns a sharp click into a softer tap, but a heavy walker still thuds. Floors also differ. In the industry’s tests, the same carpet and pad did noticeably less on a wood-joist floor than on a concrete slab.^[1] If you live in an older wood-framed building, expect a rug to help a lot with clatter and only a little with weight.

Put rugs where people actually walk. In most apartments that means the hall, the path through the living room and the side of the bed. A runner down a hallway takes a lot of the traffic noise, and our runner length guide helps you size one. Our runners are the place to start.

Upstairs hallway seen from the near end, a Hamedan runner with stepped medallions on a deep red field inside a dark navy border lies flat on honey oak boards between closed white doors — A Hamedan runner, 3 feet 5 inches by 10 feet. Its deep red field holds three stepped medallions in a dark border. A runner down the hall takes the footsteps that would otherwise travel straight through the floor.

Do rug pads reduce noise?

Yes, and for footsteps the pad matters as much as the rug. In the industry’s tests, carpet laid over a cushion absorbed more sound than the same carpet laid straight on concrete.^[1] Cushion also added a great deal to the impact rating, the measure of how much footstep noise reaches the room below.^[1] A heavier, thicker cushion absorbed more sound than a light, thin one.^[1] Weight for weight, open cushions of hair, jute or foam also did better than denser, rubber-coated ones.^[1]

For noise, felt is the strongest choice, and felt with a rubber back adds grip. We explain the types, and which floor each one suits, in Rug Pads 101. Keep the pad thin where a door swings over the rug or where an edge could catch a toe. A pad that adds quiet also adds warmth, which we cover in do rugs keep a room warm.

Sizes that make a real difference

For a living room, think about a rug that holds the whole seating group rather than one that sits under the coffee table. That usually means an 8 by 10 or a 9 by 12, and our comparison of 8x10 and 9x12 rugs helps you choose. Browse our large rugs and oversized rugs for these sizes. Most of our oversized rugs cost between about $2,000 and $2,700.

In a bedroom, a rug under the bed and out to both sides covers the spots where you stand and walk at night. Our guide to the rug size for a queen bed gives the measurements, and our bedroom rugs are sorted for that room.

Bedroom seen from above, a faded cream Isparta rug with a soft greige and taupe floral medallion lies on dark oak boards at the foot of a linen-covered bed — An Isparta, 6 feet by 8 feet 10 inches. Its cream field carries a soft floral medallion in greige and taupe. Laid at the foot of the bed, it covers the floor you cross at night.

A piano or a home office needs its own thinking. Our post on a rug under a piano covers sound from the instrument itself. In a home office, a rug under the desk takes some of the echo out of the room, which you notice most on video calls, and a rug under an office chair covers what the casters need. A rug on a wall also takes some echo out of a room, and hanging a rug on the wall shows how to do it safely.

What a rug will not fix

A rug does nothing for noise coming through walls or windows, like traffic or a neighbor’s television. It will not stop the bass from a speaker reaching the apartment below. It is not a substitute for the soundproofing built into a floor. If the noise is structural, a rug on a thick pad will take the edge off it, and that is all.

For echo and footsteps, though, a rug is one of the simplest fixes there is. Measure the floor you walk on most, add a pad to your list, and start with our large rugs.