Noise from busy street, best/cost effective options?

Hello all,

I have recently purchased and moved into a house on a busy secondary road. It is four lanes with a clearway operating in the mornings and evenings, but outside of that there are cars parked so only one lane each way. There are quite a few buses and trucks driving along as it near a motorway entrance. I knew the house was noisy before moving in but it was all I could afford at the time so figured I would just have to get used to it.

However after moving in the noise is really a lot louder than I bargained for. The traffic also does not seem to let up and you can hear it pretty much 24/7.

I have ripped up the carpet and had the floorboards polished throughout the house and as yet have not purchased rugs. There are also no curtains or drapes (does this help at all?). This may have made it slightly worse. However used the government grant to get the ceiling insulated. It is a double brick house which I thought would block a fair bit of noise, but it is let down by all the glazing being only 2mm thick. Have accidently broken one of them just by pulling the sash down too hard and it shattered (which gave me opportunity to measure thickness). I have also realised that the front door is hollow core with a small glass panel in it. Lots of noise seems to be coming through the front door.

So, I want to improve the sound insulation as best I can. Read up as much as I can on the interweb and these forums and came up with a few ideas.

- Change all doors, especially front door, to solid core doors and find some way to put rubber/sealing tape/or something?? around where the doors seal in the frame

- Change all glass to 6mm or thereabouts glass (possibly using Hush or some other acoustically treated laminated glass?)

- Put sound batts/insulation batts (is there much difference? Had earthwool, http://www.knaufinsulation.com.au/products/earthwool%E2%84%A2_batts__rolls.aspx put in the roof, was considering same under floor. Can't tell on their website what the differences between sound and insulation batts are, they look the same.)

- Possibly getting two front windows that face busy road replaced with double glazed awning style windows (where from I do not know. Bad time to plan over Christmas, everything seems closed)

- Looking at building brick fence maximum height (think that is 1.8m for Canterbury Council in Sydney) to try to reflect away some of the noise.

- Heavy drapes or curtains and rugs for the floor to at least absorb sound that does get in.

- Look for any obvious gaps around windows/doors to try and seal with whatever I can come up with.

Do I sound like I am on the right track? Any things I am looking at that are not worth/not cost effective to do?

I don't have limitless money or I would just replace all the windows with double glazing or secondary glazing. In fact if double glazing is too expensive may try to make my own magnetite secondary glazing using perspex and magnetic tape. Seems simple enough to replicate and found a site in US that sells DIY kits. (without perspex of course).

Might have to consider aircon as well if all this does block out the sound. Won't want to open the windows then.

Maybe I should just buy earplugs.

Any comments/advice/encouragement or words of wisdom appreciated.

miloolimm

Roof and Wall insulation, double glazing, roller shutters, brick boundary walls, outside/internal wall cladding may all help in some way. The smoothness of the road bitumen can also makes a difference to noise eg uneven/rough/ridges/pothole surface with large trucks/vehicles creates much more noise than a small car over a smooth surface. Prevailing wind and rain also creates more noise especially noticing it from my near freeway. I noticed a few house plans now show rear bedrooms options rather than at the front.

Heavy drapes will definitely help some, and sealing around the front door is easy - you just buy a roll of foam tape from Bunnings.

Double glazing for your windows would be well worth investigating, if you can afford it. External roller shutters would be an alternative, if you can get past the ugly factor.

Ear plugs for sleeping are actually a really good (and cheap) idea. I use them to block out my husband's snoring (which is much louder and closer than road traffic ) and the noise my eldest son makes coming home at 4:00am....

The hum or an air conditioner can be an effective way of disguising traffic and other noises, but there are other types of white noise that cost a lot less. A radio tuned between stations on low volume or a fan are just a couple of ideas I've read about. You can even download white noise MP3 files.

If it's mainly sleeping that's the issue, is it possible to rearrange the way you use your rooms so you can have your bedroom at the back of the house? It might mean you end up with a smaller living room, but at least your sanity will be intact.

Cheers for the replies.

Am strongly considering double glazing/secondary windows or just replacing 2mm glass with thicker (7mm or so) laminated glass. Roller shutters are out as I cannot get over their ugliness.

Have been using a fan for white noise and works OK but not ideal. Not really considering ear plugs but then again noise is not that loud in bedroom. I am already using a smaller room in middle of house away from road, but noise is still traveling (and through side window of this room).

Have realised that road out front is concrete and not asphalt and am researching if this makes things worse but if it does, probably not much to be done about it.

Will seal the doors once I convert to solid doors and look into sourcing drapes.

Thanks for the input.

Except if you tinnitus....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....

I remember driving on some old concrete roads some years back and the difference in road noise level as you crossed from one surface to the other was remarkable. I didn't know concrete roads still existed. Maybe you can complain to the council...or get a petition organised amongst your neighbours.



Except if you tinnitus....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.... /quote]

Now, that would be nasty....

Planting a hedge out the front might help and it should be cheaper than a 1.8m brick wall.

Double glazing should certainly help as will heavy drapes.

Andy

The first thing I would concentrate on would be the hollow doors and the windows.
Just the ones facing the noise.

See if that helps, then if you have any money left try some other options.

I work in a very noisy office, it is adjoined by a steel workshop. Core filled besser blocks, double glazed insulated windows. Great!

But


Hollow door!!!! The door literally acts as a speaker noise comes from it and fills the room. We really need to spend a couple hundred and get a proper one.

I actually think roller shutters look fine

Anyway, I guess that is a personal call - however, they are VERY effective for blocking out noise - we are shift workers and we have them on our front windows, including master bedroom, and makes it very quiet and dark (admittedly we are not on a main city road )

Have already bought some solid doors to replace the hollow ones. Not just the front door but some of the internal doors as well so if I am up late watching Tv, noise will not travel as much to bedrooms. Also there is a gap under the doors from removing the carpet and going with polished floor boards.

Interesting comment about the hollow door acting as a speaker, the noise really does seem to boom through the front door into the hallway.

And although I too am a shiftworker, I really would like to think I could avoid the roller shutter route. Horse for courses I guess.

Some fast growing shrubs on the fence line may also help to absorb noise, before it reaches the house.

Edited to say, sorry just realised Andy suggested this in a previous post

Thanks for the suggestion of trees, however from research I have conducted on the web, trees are not very effective at blocking out noise. Apparently it is all about the density of whatever material you are putting up and making it a solid barrier so noise cannot bleed through. At least that is what the interweb is saying. We need to pave over the front yard anyway as the road is a clearway twice a day and we need somewhere to park and turn around to drive out (can be too busy to reverse car out onto), so a fenc as part of that may be feasible.

I am starting to get a lot more used to it though after only three or four weeks now.

I used to live across the road from a busy railway station interchange.
I too got used to the noise. The large cattle and coal haulers actually shook the block of units that I was in.