Building components · Ceilings & Voids
Resilient Mounting
Explains the mounting as the single point on which a decoupled lining depends, distinct from the hanger that carries a ceiling, the strip at a floating floor's edge, and the frame that avoids connection altogether.
Educational reference entry. What this element has to do, and whether any particular arrangement of it is adequate, depends on the whole assembly, the loading, the exposure, local requirements, the manufacturer's instructions and qualified professional design.
Overview
What a resilient mounting is
A resilient mounting is a connection made deliberately flexible so that the surface it carries is not rigidly attached to the structure behind or above it. It is met wherever a lining or a ceiling is intended to be decoupled but still has to be held up: at the fixing plane, at the suspension, or between a frame and the structure it bears on.
Its significance is that it is a single point on which a whole approach depends. Structure-borne sound follows connections, so a lining that is resiliently mounted everywhere except at one screw, one service bracket or one bead of adhesive has a path, and that path can undo the rest. This is why isolation is discussed as a property of a complete arrangement and of its workmanship, rather than as a property of the mounting on its own.
Boundaries
How it differs from nearby elements
The distinctions that keep this entry from being a restatement of its neighbours.
- It is not a resilient bar. Resilient bars and isolation channels are a published material entry: a procured section fixed on one flange so a board can be held off the frame behind it. The resilient mounting is the position that section commonly fills, and the same position is met as a bracket, a hanger with a flexible element in it, or a pad beneath a frame.
- It is not a ceiling hanger. A hanger's defining job is to carry a ceiling and set the depth of the void; a resilient mounting's defining job is to interrupt a connection, and a hanger may be rigid or resilient without ceasing to be a hanger.
- It is not an independent ceiling frame. An independent frame removes the connection to the structure above entirely by spanning between walls; a resilient mounting softens a connection that still exists and still carries weight.
Terminology
Common names and aliases
These names describe the same element. The library keeps one entry per component so that a trade term or a regional name never becomes a second, thinner page.
- isolation mount
- anti-vibration mount
- resilient fixing
- isolator
Dependencies
What it depends on
What has to be right elsewhere for this element to do its job.
- Being the only connection, since any rigid contact elsewhere in the same assembly bypasses it entirely.
- The load it carries, because a mounting compressed solid no longer behaves as a flexible connection at all.
- What passes through the lining or ceiling it supports, since services, brackets, fixings and light fittings commonly reconnect the two sides after the mounting is installed.
- The whole arrangement it sits within, because isolation is a property of the assembly and of how it was built rather than of any single component.
Considerations
Topics that genuinely apply here
Subjects worth discussing about this element. These are discussion topics, never measured values, ratings or performance claims.
Structure-borne sound follows connections, so the number, type and loading of the connections through an isolated lining is what governs the outcome. What that outcome is can be established by testing rather than predicted from a construction description.
The mounting still carries the weight of what it supports, so it is a load path as well as an interruption, and the two duties constrain each other.
Isolation is more often lost on site than in design: a long screw, a service bracket or an adhesive contact at one point reconnects the two sides invisibly.
Later work — a shelf fixing, a new light fitting, a cable route — can reconnect an isolated surface, and nothing about the finished surface shows that it was ever isolated.
Materials
Commonly formed from
Material families this element is commonly realised in. This states common practice only — it is not a statement that any of these materials suits this component in a particular building, which depends on the whole assembly and on qualified review.
Assemblies
Building systems this element is met in
The role this component fills inside each assembly. A role describes what the element does there — it is not a statement that this component suits that system in any particular building.
Clarifications
Commonly misunderstood
- That a resilient mounting is a property of the lining material. It is a connection detail; the boards and framing on either side of it may be entirely conventional.
- That adding resilient mountings to an existing lining improves it. What matters is whether every other connection between that lining and the structure has been removed, which is usually the larger part of the work.
Conversations
Questions for qualified professionals
Questions worth asking someone with the project in front of them. This page cannot answer them.
- Is this mounting the only connection between the lining and the structure, and has that been checked along the whole assembly?
- What load is the mounting carrying, and is it working within the range it is intended for?
- How do services, fixings and fittings pass through the isolated surface without reconnecting it?
- What testing or design basis is the acoustic expectation for this room founded on?
Go deeper
Related Build Design Hub guides
Planning guidance behind the decisions this element involves.
Preparation
Related planning checklists
Owner-side preparation before the conversation where this element comes up.
What this entry does not do
- This entry describes a connection. It states no load, deflection, spacing, product type or acoustic performance value, and none can be inferred from it.
- Acoustic performance is a property of a complete tested assembly and of the workmanship that built it; nothing here indicates what any arrangement will achieve.
Ceiling & Void Elements
The joists, hangers, independent frames, voids and access provisions that form the plane above a room and the space behind it.
Browse all ceilings & voids entries →