What's wrong with resident house in Britain?

robatwork

You are right.

In any house connected to another (or flat) you will hear your neighbour if they should/sneeze/play loud music. I have lived in several from 1900-1930-1950-2000 and none have what you would consider great audio insulation.

I suspect you're European - central or eastern maybe. Houses there are simply built better, the walls tend to be thicker and the dividing floors are normally concrete which is almost unheard of here with our bouncy floors suspended on wooden joists.

It's common and we deal with it by dealing with it. Or if you're wealthy buy detached or build your own.

buggy_boy

There are all sorts of noise deadening insulation products out there, but generally its not seen as enough of a problem to spend the extra money.

Most properties have this issue, regardless of country, ive been to most european countries and can't say that the build quality or noise insulation is any better. There is an issue everywhere with quality as it takes more time to do a decent job and people don't appreciate that extra quality so wont pay for it.

If it bothers you that much buy a detached house or an older property with 3ft thick walls (Although expect your heating bill to be massive)

zagubov

Unfortunately, architecture in most parts of the UK is sub-optimal. I'm being euphemistic; our houses could hardly be worse-designed.

Often the size is restricted to allow room for a garden than will never be visited.

Often houses will be detached so they need to allow for stairwells to access some rooms.

Often there are no restrictions on flooring so people avoid flats in case laminated floors make lower floors uninhabitable.

The leasehold system n some parts of the UK deters flat-buyers.

In London, single-people make up about 44% of the population but the housing stock seems inadequate to house them.

seven-day-weekend

buggy_boy wrote: »

There are all sorts of noise deadening insulation products out there, but generally its not seen as enough of a problem to spend the extra money.

Most properties have this issue, regardless of country, ive been to most european countries and can't say that the build quality or noise insulation is any better. There is an issue everywhere with quality as it takes more time to do a decent job and people don't appreciate that extra quality so wont pay for it.

If it bothers you that much buy a detached house or an older property with 3ft thick walls (Although expect your heating bill to be massive)

Our house in Spain, an old house, was dreadful for noise. We had no neighbours most of the time, but if they did appear in their holiday home, we literally could hear every footstep in their sitting room (which ran over our downstairs bedroom). And this is an old village house with thick walls, not some flung up apartment for holidaymakers.

The 1930 bungalow I live in now, in the UK is semi-detached but is only joined at the bedrooms. The kitchen is a detached wing at the back. We never hear any noise from them, and neither do they from us.

So I think it depends very much upon the property.