Traffic noise

My house is, unfortunately, in the vicinity of a freeway. The noise didn't sound too bad when we first looked at the place, and we even went back at night to see if it seemed worse then. It didn't.

Now it's starting to get to me.

There's a lot of things I could do, but I'm not sure what the most effective would be or what order I should tackle things in.

The ceiling is not insulated at the moment, and that's something I'm attending to sooner rather than later anyway.

Other things I have up my sleeve are a brick front fence, double glazing, insulating the floors and walls and carpeting (floorboards at the moment).

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated!

Turn the radio on so you have a different background noise.

It's not so much during the day that it bothers me though. It's at night when we're trying to sleep, so the radio isn't really an option.

During the day it isn't so bad, the power tools drown out a lot of noise...

How long have you been there? I lived in a house on Rocky Point Road in Sydney. Traffic all day and night, including trucks plus a set of lights just up the road, so it would all come to a stop then rev off when the lights changed. The first week or two, I couldn't sleep but by the time I left a year later, I could sleep through anything.

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Originally Posted by echnidna

Turn the radio on so you have a different background noise.

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Yeah - put on that 1981 album "Shake It Up". Who was that by again?? Oh yeah - The Cars. https://www.ubeaut.biz/auto.gif ;):rolleyes::p

Sorry mate - I don't have any good advice for you. Insulating sounds like the way to go, whether it is done with a garden or if you insulate your ceiling. Perhaps a dedicated noise barrier between you and the freeway? Can look a bit ugly but could be softened with bushes.

Good luck.

We moved in just before christmas, so I'm not sure we're going to get used to it any time soon.

I've noticed it also depends on which way the wind blows too, so I've planted a number of small trees to try and baffle the sound a bit, but it'll be a few years before they're big enough.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention those were my party days and I was usually more in a coma than actually sleeping :o

I've heard double glazing makes a big difference. Will help with heating too.

Replacing the glass with thicker glass (say 8mm) will be cheaper and just as, or more effective than cheap double glazing. If you dont' believe me search the web for data on sound transmission.

Check out CSR's website on acoustic systems, then see how your construction rates and work on the weak links. I'd bet that the windows are pretty much the weakest at the moment.

if you sleep with the windows open, it won't work! I have actually experienced this with a customer who bought a unit on a main road, and then complained about the noise, despite our acoustic treatment. Said he couldn't stand the airconditioner on at night!

Install an airconditioner, but you only have to run it in "fan" mode to provide a bit of background noise, which will reduce what you can hear to a dull roar.

Cheers,

P

Look for gaps. Where air can flow through, so too can sound. Draft excluders on external doors will help. Check for gaps around window sashes as well.

I had friends who live in a Queenslander that was off the ground by about 2-3 metres at the front.

They ended up doubleglazing the windows, putting in an airconditioner, put sound deadening in the walls and underneath the floor,which was simply the floorboards.

Works well even without the air con on.

cheers
Wendy

Hey ruffly, what was the sound deadening material they used?

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Originally Posted by atregent

My house is, unfortunately, in the vicinity of a freeway. The noise didn't sound too bad when we first looked at the place, and we even went back at night to see if it seemed worse then. It didn't.

Now it's starting to get to me.

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I've been through that. The peak hour seems to esculate the noise to levels you didn't dream of when you were looking at the place. I went through a stage where I was a little obsessed with it, and I get the feeling that you're there now. I went to Queensland Uni and looked through their books on road noise and acoustics and had a whole lot of earthworks done to bounce the noise back at them (we live on acerage). In your case the simple but expensive solution is to insulate the walls and so on with acoustic insulation and to re-plaster with acoustic gyprock, double glaze ....

But really, you get used to it. Your brain will erase it so well that you'll have to tune back into it if a visitor mentions it. SWMBO tells me that when she's alone of a day the noise can be a comfort to her.

Good luck with it.:)

I know what you mean about traffic noise,

It's getting bad down here too!!!!!!

Must be 50 to 100 cars going past each day now!! :eek: :eek:

You think you got it bad :p where we live we get annoyed if more than 20 vehicles a day go past and thats including grain truck semies. Last year one day was blo...dy annoying 150 Variet Club cars went past all blaring their horns when we waved :eek: :D Tonto

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Originally Posted by atregent

The ceiling is not insulated at the moment, and that's something I'm attending to sooner rather than later anyway.

Other things I have up my sleeve are a brick front fence, double glazing, insulating the floors and walls and carpeting (floorboards at the moment).

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If you are level with the freeway the brick fence may be the best thing to reflect the sound. Make sure it is higher than a car's wheels. For a super-soundproof fence, make it a double walled brick fence with a garden in the middle - like a really long and tall planter box (about 600mm wide). Expensive to build but you will need to do very little to the house.

If you are below the freeway you are in trouble, the roof will need a lot of soundproofing and double glazing is on the cards.

Above the freeway a fence should help a lot and little else would be necessary.

Deep rumbles you are stuck with, due to the long wavelength and its ability to penetrate the ground, house and everything else besides.

Groggy (who lives on a very busy street and is dreaming of Al offering to build his ultimate-fence ;) )

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Originally Posted by Tonto

You think you got it bad :p where we live we get annoyed if more than 20 vehicles a day go past and thats including grain truck semies. Last year one day was blo...dy annoying 150 Variet Club cars went past all blaring their horns when we waved :eek: :D Tonto

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;)

If you go the fence option, use rough brick (clinker or textured) and have it built with a checker board pattern of indents or some other multi-surface system - this will help to reduce any 'echo' effect & may seem to reduce noise by staggering the noise wave pattern. If your house is rendered this could also be contributing to the apparent noise level.

And plant plenty of dense bushes.

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Originally Posted by felixe

Hey ruffly, what was the sound deadening material they used?

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Hi Felixe, I think it was whatever was at the hardware stores. From memory, looked like waddings or the fibreglass insulation, covered with foil sarking.

Cheers
Wendy

If you are in a hurry you could try www.gws.com.au
They make wall panel system which is easy to install though it is a bit expensive. Not too bad if you do it yourself though.
It seems to do ok with the heavy noise as well. I live on a freeway and after I installed it near a window, the window doesnt vibrate like it used to.
Gives the look of a rendered wall when finished.

Shane.

I used to be good friends with a guy that had a acoustic insulation company - we shared a warehouse and many conversations about this problem.
Sound acts like water or waves so if you build a fence the sound will roll over the top.
When Sydney built the second runway and there was the threat of a voter backlash about noise the government paid to have some houses noise proofed and some they bought and just demolished.
I think it was cheaper to demolish the houses!
You have to insulate all walls, floors and ceilings. block out any where noise can get in then you wont be able to breath because you have cut of your o2 supply, ie special air intakes needed.
There was that guy on new inventors who has developed an acoustic brick that simplistically is like a brick vent containing a set of pan pipes that the noise gets cancelled in as it passes through.
Or you could sell up?

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Originally Posted by Groggy

If you are below the freeway you are in trouble, the roof will need a lot of soundproofing and double glazing is on the cards.

Above the freeway a fence should help a lot and little else would be necessary.

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Groggy IMHO its the opposite, if you are lower the noise is negligible if you are higher you hear it.

Go to your nearest bridge and go underneath it, (not too close to get the vibration via the supports) you hear very little then go sit on an embankment above it and check out the difference.

G'day Atregent,
How is it now? You should be well and truly used to the noise by now. When I was 9, the family moved to a quiet house, the road ended a couple of blocks past our place. By the time I moved out 15 years later, a whole new suburb was on the end of that road and we didn't notice any noise. The first week in my new home, I couldn't sleep - too bl00dy quiet!!!
Cheers
Graeme

our street runs onto a service road beside the Ipswich motorway

so we pretty much cop a lot of traffic day and night and you do get used to it.

if we stay at other peoples places we have trouble sleeping because it's too quiet.
mind you i grew up practically next to Archerfield airport and our house was under the flight path of aircraft taking off and landing



on the upside the neighbours never complain if you make a bit of noise at night including noise from power tools:p

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Originally Posted by reybec

....if we stay at other peoples places we have trouble sleeping because it's too quiet......

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Geeze you'd have strife out here.....:rolleyes: it is so quiet that a beetle flying past sounds like a cropduster & if he hits the tin roof, you'd think he was coming through it. :D

I was amazed at how quiet it is here, one day we stood at the front gate & listened to the distant roar of a shower of rain that was 4kms away. :oo:

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Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

Geeze you'd have strife out here.....:rolleyes: it is so quiet that a beetle flying past sounds like a cropduster & if he hits the tin roof, you'd think he was coming through it. :D

I was amazed at how quiet it is here, one day we stood at the front gate & listened to the distant roar of a shower of rain that was 4kms away. :oo:

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We have the same here, yesterday while at the house we heard the rain coming about 10 minutes before it got here, makes a racket when it's hitting the rainforest!

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Originally Posted by graemet

G'day Atregent,
How is it now? You should be well and truly used to the noise by now.

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You'd think so, wouldn't you. It still really gives me the irrits though. There's been a few nights that I would have liked to sleep with the front door open, but way too noisy to sleep.

I've put a double glazed window in the bedroom, which has sort of helped a bit, but not as much as I was hoping for. But, it's a weatherboard house, so I guess I need to be realistic about that too. Acoustic wall and ceiling batts are next on the list.

I think the main issue is the noise wall on the freeway. It's the same one that was put up when the freeway was built, so it's quite old, and doesn't extend over the Warigal road bridge. Truck exhaust brakes don't help much either.

I am starting to be able to tune it out sometimes though, so I guess a couple more years and I'll hardly notice it!

OK! So I'm not sure if my memory is right or not, but, I did once live between a Melbourne freeway (this was before Bracks) and my street frontage.
The freeway was at just below my house ceiling height and the front street about two metres below floor level - the vehicle noise, in the house, was from solely the front street.
I think I recall being told traffic noise (tyres on the road) rises at 15 degrees. This is, of course, a part of the noise creation and perhaps explains why almost no noise pollution came from the back. The freeway bed was at a slight gadient so generated no great engine noises and wasn't a problem.
Therefore you might try placing a baffle high enough to intercept the noise radiating at 15 degrees from the road surface. A solid fence, or a thickish growing hedge but this sounds like years and much work. Both together may be an option.
I now live 100s of metres from a main thoroughfare with traffic lights and a slight rise - when the air is still I clearly hear the engine noise of B-Double gears and revving motor if the truck is having a stop/start journey.

soth

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Originally Posted by Tonto

You think you got it bad :p where we live we get annoyed if more than 20 vehicles a day go past and thats including grain truck semies. Last year one day was blo...dy annoying 150 Variet Club cars went past all blaring their horns when we waved :eek: :D Tonto

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Twenty!:oo: We can hear a car coming for minutes, which disturbs the birdsong:(( . Maybe see 8-10 on a Saturday. Any more the local rag would come out I reckon.

We have lived with traffic noise before - you do get used to it. Mind you I never got used to living 1km from Cairns airpport, under theh flightpath. There was an old 707 freighter from the Islands, that we dubbed the 'Thunderbolt' - fcuk it was loud, in the Concordes' league. Literally rattled things about the place.

I have just added a second story on my house on Francis Street, Yarraville. We have about 6000 trucks going past day & night. Yes, there is a curfew but that does not exclude the "local" traffic going to the numerous container parks, ships and petrol depots. The original part of the house is double brick so provided the front door is closed it is not too bad. The front yard is "no-mans-land" as you can't hear yourself think out there.
Upstairs is just rendered blue board and plaster board. We haven't put in any windows that face directly onto Francis Street.
We have double glazed the windows with 6.38 mm laminated glass on the outside of the lead light glass. We are going to keep the sash windows closed that face the street so we have just fixed the outside sheet in the fixed frame.
The windows facing the back yard will be able to open. We have double glazed some casement windows and we open these on hot days to get some breeze through. They are not in the bedroom so we can sleep with those open.
I considered the CSR sound deadening plaster board that they use for home theatres but because of the cost and weight ended up going for the 13mm plaster board. In the walls I put CSR sound check bats (rockwool).
Most companies promote the polyester insulation but it doesn't have any sound deadening qualities.

When we moved upstairs the traffic only worried me for about a week and now it is not bad, even on hot nights when our terrace door (faces the back yard) is open.

The short version- I would recommend CSR sound check for the ceiling as the first step. Then double glazing or thick glass as mentioned by someone else.

Or wait until petrol hits $2.50 a litre and everybody will go back to riding horses and you'll just have the "clip-clop" to complain about :U

I was told once that commercial grade windows (and frames) do a lot to keep road noise out. Bloke next door to me bought a lot 2nd hand recently quite cheaply from a demolition yard. You could try replacing just the windows in direct line of sight with the noise source?

Radio? I find that 2GB going at night helps to keep me asleep, and if I'm not then at least I have something to listen to. Try a "talk-back" station. The trick is to have a fairly constant noise (talking) as any variation in pitch such as music or loud ads will tend to wake you.

prozac