The current method of measuring impact noise transmission involves the use of a standard hammer machine to produce a series of impact on the floor‐ceiling structure, and the measurement of the resulting noise produced in the room below. The method has been criticized on the ground that ratings based on the test data correlate poorly with the subjective judgments of people listening to real‐life impacts on the same floors. An alternative test method is proposed that uses a modified hammer machine whose internal impedance, intensity of impact, and striking frequency simulate those of real footfalls. The new method involves several changes from the present standard: short‐term rms impact sound levels are measured instead of long‐term rms levels; no normalization for the sound absorption of the receiving room is required; since the short‐term levels are higher than the long‐term levels usually measured, background noise is less of a problem than for the existing method. These proposed changes based on recent studies are expected to improve the correlation between test data and subjective judgments of floors.Subject Classification: [43]55.80; [43]50.45.