Measuring noise from neighbours

mikelata

YEP, i know what it is living the noise of the neighbours...
Hi!!!


I bought a council house which has solid concrete walls to separate from the neighbours. Unfortunately, I can heard absolutely everything they do... They have a fan in the bathroom that drives me crazy each time they use it, I heard their alarm clock, the vacuum cleaner, last night I could heard them watching coronation street!!!

The problem is that I dont understand why that is happening with those thick concrete walls. Even though our chimney is blocked, we both have the chimney in the same place. Could that be the problem?
Does anybody have the same problem?
DOes anybody know how to measure the noise to identify the location by which the noise is getting into my house?
Any suggestion would be much appreciated before I lose my sanity ...:(

Thanks!!!

Sherifu

Hi and welcome to boards,

This probably belongs in the Accommodation & Property forum.

I'll report it to be moved there.

Ruu_Old

Moved from Newbies & FAQ.

bugler

I would think it's unlikely that the noise is "getting in" at any one particular point. The most obvious cause would be inadequate sound-proofing. You say there are solid concrete walls...but are you sure? Throughout?

You can get engineers to test the sound insulation of a dwelling, so that might be an initial step.

Phaetonman

Not much you can do now. Retrospective soundproofing is expensive and doesn't work too well.

Probably shouldn't have bought a cheap council house.

The_Conductor

Phaetonman wrote:

Not much you can do now. Retrospective soundproofing is expensive and doesn't work too well.

Probably shouldn't have bought a cheap council house.

The fact that its an ex-council house is totally irrelevant.
Cinder blocks are not good sound insulators, full stop.
This problem is endemic in property built over the past few years.
If it is as big a problem as you say- you have two options, the aforementioned retrospective insulation of the walls (there are a few companies in the Dublin area specialising in these works) or move yet again.

There are proposals to make the retrospective insulation of residential property a grant aided activity under current SEI proposals (more with minimising heat loss as an aim, than reducing noise pollution- but it would have a similar helpful reduction in noise, one would hope). There are proposals with the DoE on this at present (its supposedly to based on the scheme being rolled out in London at the moment).

You can get a device for measuring noise pollution- indeed some of the construction phones (think JCB and the rubberised Nokia phones) used to have a noise meter built in).

The problem really is, a single cinder block is *not* a good sound insulator. There are a lot of advertising campaigns with slogans like "Concrete built is better built" which might lead you to believe that it should make a far better insulator than it actually does. A good thick wall, or a deep floor, will be good- a cinder block wall though, while sufficient for most purposes, as you have discovered, is useless for noise insulation.

loyatemu

I lived in a concrete-built gaff, and now live in a timber-framed house (both terraced), and the sound insulation is much, much better in the new place. As the previous poster said, concrete-built is not necessarily better built.

godtabh

loyatemu wrote: »

I lived in a concrete-built gaff, and now live in a timber-framed house (both terraced), and the sound insulation is much, much better in the new place. As the previous poster said, concrete-built is not necessarily better built.

They are using cinder blocks rather than reinforced concrete construciton which has a lot better insulation values