Noise between flats

Person_one

Thanks all, I've made an appointment to view the flat on a weekday evening. I'll stand in silence for a bit and see what I can hear!

The last flat I lived in, the people above were doing major refurbishment work so I did hear drilling, hammering etc. but never normal day to day sounds like TV or conversation, so I haven't given it a thought up to this point. Oops!

boliston

I'd say stick with new builds built in the last 5 years as before then there were not many rules about sound insulation. I'm pretty sure that the concrete structural floor material now has to have a minimum mass of 300kg per square meter to pass "part e" regs and needs to have a minimum thickness of 6". eg http://www.robustdetails.com/index.php?id=10055&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=25172&tx_ttnews[backPid]=3656&cHash=df14253976

beccad

Unfortunately you can never tell who is going to make lots of noise! We lived in a Victorian terrace conversion (one of the noisy 1980s ones) and we had a family next door with four kids whom we never heard, another family next door who were a bit noisy during the day, but quiet at night, so not a problem as such. The biggest problem was the couple who lived upstairs, both in their 60s and they SCREAMED at each other all !!!!!!!g day and night. They were pretty much the reason we moved. I mentioned it to them a number of times and they knew they were noisy and that all the neighbours around them had complained, but they just found each other so damn annoying that they couldn't help all the shouting!

white_noise

depends on the property and if it is a new build or flats build from conversion, if new build the airbourne sound insulation has to be greater than 45 dB, if converted 43 dB.
if new build/converted it would have to adhere to approved document E, and there should be some sound insulation test certificate knocking about somewhere, the key is tracking it down (depends if testing was done under UKAS or ANC guidance).
though if its an older build and you can give some sort of guide of what the construction of the walls and floors are then i can estimate what sound insulation they will give you.
be warned though with a sound insulation of 45 dB you will still be able to hear your neighbours
WN (acoustician)

dizziblonde

My old flat had the worst soundproofing known to man. Could hear word for word one guy rocking out in his living room along to the radio, and the other neighbour's stereo could clearly hear what song it was (not just the boom boom boom of base). Surprisingly it wasn't really a problem because we had similar taste in music (although I never did let singing man know just how much of it I could hear) but if I had to look for another flat - I'd make sure of the layout so I didn't end up with the same situation again whereby my bedroom was next to the guy next door's lounge (and TV).

Ours was a pretty unusual conversion of a former Co-Op shop though - so all ground floor of a square shop basically chopped into quarters.

At the time though I actually quite liked the security of knowing if I was murdered in my bed there'd be people around who'd hear me scream through the walls - but I guess that's slightly loopy!

Person_one

The block was built 2006, so hopefully should be ok from the sounds of it.

I visited at 5.30pm so not exactly prime noise hour but I couldn't hear anything from above. Its a corner flat so luckily only one wall adjoins to a same level neighbour and its not in my bedroom!

Fingers crossed it should be ok, thanks for all the advice!

white_noise

Person_one wrote: »

The block was built 2006, so hopefully should be ok from the sounds of it.

boom boom chah!
it sounds that the development would have been tested then (though maybe not your party wall), do you know who built the properties? if so you should be able to get in contact with the developers and ask to see the sound insulation certificates (they will be somewhere). these will give the details of the wall construction and what the airbourne sound insulation of the walls of the development are. like i say, even if they pass at 45 dB, you can still hear next door
WN

Person_one

white_noise wrote: »

boom boom chah!
it sounds that the development would have been tested then (though maybe not your party wall), do you know who built the properties? if so you should be able to get in contact with the developers and ask to see the sound insulation certificates (they will be somewhere). these will give the details of the wall construction and what the airbourne sound insulation of the walls of the development are. like i say, even if they pass at 45 dB, you can still hear next door
WN

I do know who built it, so that's not a bad idea, thanks.