Are detached persimmon homes noisy?

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We are considering buying a new build house, as we like things pretty modern and are keen to get an energy efficient house. and we are looking at a detached persimmon home. Having read the internet for quite some time there are probably 95% bad reviews regarding the new persimmon builds, but like most things on the internet, you only hear the bad things, not the good, although most of these bad reviews are for semi detached houses it seems. 

So we are wondering if anyone here has bought a detached persimmon home? the main thing we are concerned about is the level of noise, as we know the houses although being detached, they are only a few feet apart from next door, and was wondering if anyone who has bought one has had any noise issues?

Also what about interior noise? as some people report being able to hear everything their children are doing upstairs, speaking walking around, etc. which I dont know if people are going OTT as I can hear my children talking to friends and walking around upstairs despite currently being in an "old properly built house".

KatrinaWaves

I can’t comment on houses, although a friend I knew had a Persimmon ‘detached’ new build (you couldn’t walk between the houses so to me that’s not detached....) so I have ‘some’ experience to generalise my experiences in a Persimmon flat to the houses as I feel the build quality in 2011 when I got my flat to 2020 when my friend got their house is the same. It’s pure style over substance. It looks fancy and top of the range but it’s cheap and nasty. The snagging list on the Persimmon builds was huge, chunks out of a breakfast bar, scratches on pretty much ever glass surface, daft things like glue and sealant spilling out around the edges of things. Just no attention to detail and a lot of ‘not my job’ attitude! We also suffered badly from noise from below and one of our exterior walls was very badly insulated, constantly freezing to the touch and would get covered in black mould which they tried to blame on our ventilation, but did finally fix once we got an independent report. 

The Bellway we moved into afterwards didn’t look as slick and fancy on the surface but was 100% better built and we had no such issues! 

Davesnave

I can't comment on Persimmon in particular, but my BiL is a site manager with 30 years in the business and he won't work for any of the nationals now. He says he can't stand the attitude within those organisations, from the top right down to those who are on piece work and just going for speed. He works for a smaller, local builder where he feels there is still some attention to quality of build and reputation.

I don't buy new houses, but if I did, I'd keep the above in mind.

mobileron

Yes, with dozens of workmen coming to rectify the faults left by the builders.
Id google a bit more on there quality of builds etc.

Swasterix

I owned a detached Persimmon house. Built in 2012. Had no issues with noise from inside or outside, seemed fairly well insulated. Energy bills were very low so thermally efficient too. 

Funnily enough, I found my snagging list the other week from when we moved in to the house. It was 2 sides of A4, size 10(ish) font... To the site managers credit, it was all sorted for when we moved in and had very few problems after that. 

From what I’ve read the quality does tend to vary significantly from site to site. Might be a good idea to have a walk around the estate and see if you can speak to residents to get a gauge on what the site is like. 

OldMusicGuy

Two separate questions here. Noise in a detached new build house and quality of Persimmon. The noise in a detached home has nothing to do with build quality, more the site layout. We lived in a detached Charles Church home for 20 years (before Persimmon bought them). There was no noise in the house from neighbours but the front and rear gardens were a different kettle of fish. Despite being an "executive" development of 4 and 5 bed houses, they were quite close together. Next door's driveway butted up to our wall and garden edge, while on the other side the driveways were separated by a small grass area. This meant there was no privacy at the front of the house and being on good terms with neighbours was essential as you were very close to them when getting in and out of cars in the front. No noise at the front though. 

The gardens at the rear joined on to each other at either side so you might as well have been in a terraced house. If you had neighbours who made noise on the garden, you would hear it. Fortunately there were no houses backing on to our garden (it backed onto a school) but we are in rented detached now and the garden is surrounded by 5 other gardens due to the development layout. Two families have noisy screaming kids who were clearly struggling during lockdown. Didn't bother us but it might bother some people.

Bottom line - a detached house will give you less direct neighbour noise in the house but is unlikely to be any different to a semi or terrace on a new build development in terms of privacy out the front and garden noise at the back. Choosing the plot location will make more difference. 

As for quality, I couldn't comment. We bought a Charles Church house 20 years ago and it was great, we are buying a new build from a small regional developer and the quality and design is superb. 

Davesnave

OldMusicGuy said:

The noise in a detached home has nothing to do with build quality,

OP asked about interior noise too. I haven't disassembled many modern houses, but when I worked on my Dad's bungalow (1986) I was surprised to find no acoustic insulation in the stud partition walls; it was just wood frame and a bit of ordinary plasterboard on either side. No wonder sound from the TV in the living room carried.

In our bungalow there's two staggered sheets of acoustic plasterboard on each side with rockwool in the interstitial spaces. That gives a resonable result regarding sound transfer.  Even deeper loft insulation can help, so I'd say build quality makes a lot of difference inside.

tim9966

You will still have outside noise, but the main advantage is you won't be hearing your neighbours watching TV, or going up the stairs. 

OldMusicGuy

Davesnave said:

OP asked about interior noise too. I haven't disassembled many modern houses, but when I worked on my Dad's bungalow (1986) I was surprised to find no acoustic insulation in the stud partition walls; it was just wood frame and a bit of ordinary plasterboard on either side. No wonder sound from the TV in the living room carried.

In our bungalow there's two staggered sheets of acoustic plasterboard on each side with rockwool in the interstitial spaces. That gives a resonable result regarding sound transfer.  Even deeper loft insulation can help, so I'd say build quality makes a lot of difference inside.

Fair point - I was only referring to neighbour noise. Best thing to do is to get the details of the house construction from the developer. We were given plans which show the construction of all the walls which will give an idea about internal noise transmission. We are buying a semi so I was particularly interested in the construction of the party wall.

princeofpounds

No specific information about Persimmon, but newbuild detached properties - for all their faults - are unlikely to have a particular noise issue between houses, even if they are relatively close. Airborne noise is particularly attenuated by boundaries between different substances and at different widths, and you are going to have several layers of that between a room in one house and a room in another (wall-cavity-wall-gap-wall-cavity-wall). Windows will be double-glazed too. 

Noise within the same house, and between gardens... that's a different matter.

RelievedSheff

Can't comment on the quality of Persimmon Homes but we bought a new build David Wilson detached house last year. We were quite lucky in that our plot is very detached, our closest neighbours are 6m away across a double width driveway and our next nearest neighbours are 13m away at the bottom of our garden with their driveway between our boundary wall and their house. Our garden also isn't overlooked, it is on the side of the house and faces the gable end of the next door house so it is very private.

When we are outside we can hear neighbours in their gardens, we can't see them due to the layout but generally the noise level isn't too obtrusive, although this will depend on your development layout of course. The real difference comes when you can go inside, shut all of the windows and doors and have the peace and quiet of your own home with no neighbour noise.

Noise within the house between rooms will of course depend on the house layout. All of our downstairs walls are blockwork construction and our kitchen/diner and living room are separated by a hallway so noise between down stairs rooms is kept to a minimum. Our bathrooms have insulated stud walls which keep the noise levels down and our master bedroom and guest bedrooms are at opposite sides of the house so again noise transmission from this source is quite low. The only slight issue we do have is that the master bedroom is above the lounge and you can hear quite a lot of TV noise between the rooms. We are going to look into insulating the floor void to try and reduce this noise.