Dilemma with recent house move and future

MiserlyMartin

NameUnavailable said:

The problem with fitting sound proofing is that when you come to sell it will signal to buyers that the property has noise issues.

I'm in a similar situation to the OP with noisy neighbours with 3 kids and also thinking about sound proofing here. I thought the same thing that if you sell it - if you declare in the advert that sound proofing was done as a selling feature, that it might put buyers off thinking you have bad neighbours.

Best thing would be not to mention it

MiserlyMartin

I have terrible old wall paper on one bedroom party wall. I know that when I pull it off the plaster will need repairing, so I was also thinking of installing noise insulating plaster board. It is thicker than plasterboard, backed with acoustic foam and deadening material. I was hoping that it wouldn't cost too much seeing that it will all be part of the decoration. My neighbours aren't too bad but their kids are just loud and they do not put them to bed at 8, they are up until 1am when not at school!

This house is 1940s and is quite quiet when not next to the ajoining walls, ie lounges and bedrooms are joined, but not the bathrooms or kitchens, so there is no noise from their kitchens or bathrooms. Unlike my old 1980s semi. That house was made out of breezeblock on the internal walls whereas a 40s house is brick throughout. I think the noise travels along the breezeblock so that even if you are in your bedroom on the opposite side of the house, you can still hear your neighbours in the bathroom, flushing loo etc!

But other than that, most advice here seems to be to move house!

RelievedSheff

MiserlyMartin said:

I have terrible old wall paper on one bedroom party wall. I know that when I pull it off the plaster will need repairing, so I was also thinking of installing noise insulating plaster board. It is thicker than plasterboard, backed with acoustic foam and deadening material. I was hoping that it wouldn't cost too much seeing that it will all be part of the decoration. My neighbours aren't too bad but their kids are just loud and they do not put them to bed at 8, they are up until 1am when not at school!

This house is 1940s and is quite quiet when not next to the ajoining walls, ie lounges and bedrooms are joined, but not the bathrooms or kitchens, so there is no noise from their kitchens or bathrooms. Unlike my old 1980s semi. That house was made out of breezeblock on the internal walls whereas a 40s house is brick throughout. I think the noise travels along the breezeblock so that even if you are in your bedroom on the opposite side of the house, you can still hear your neighbours in the bathroom, flushing loo etc!

But other than that, most advice here seems to be to move house!

Nothing to do with whether it is brick or block and everything to do with the actual construction.

Our old 1930's semi which had terrible sound transmission between properties was a brick party wall but it was a single brick (215mm) thick, not the common now 100mm block, 100mm cavity and 100mm block. The floor joists spanned into the party wall and sat end to end so the sound transmitted through them.

It was a shoddy build. It always makes me laugh when people claim that local authority housing is built well  

johnnpaull12

Stonesmike said:

Slightly similar to you, wife and I recently retired and due to both starting work early didn’t realise next door neighbour goes on his exercise machine anytime  between 07.00 - 09.30 plus fairly loud music. I did go round and asked them nicely if they could consider exercising later or actually move the machine to their garage, but they looked at me if I was on a different planet and the noise continued!!!

They do have young kids, who get a bit noisy at times, but not a big problem as the exercising.

I am in the process of doing our house up and will be looking for a detached property this year, I can’t keep on being on tender hooks every morning, waiting for the noise to start.

Best of luck to you.

It’s horrible isn’t it. Fortunately I leave for work every morning before they awake however on the weekend I’m led in bed wide awake as soon as I hear it and that’s me in a bad mood then! 

I think the good thing about making house improvements while still hoping to move is that you’ll only increase the value when you come to sell.

Unlike where soundproofing may fail you’ll not increase the value at all, and if you highlighted it had been done you’d put off buyers if anything.

johnnpaull12

drivingmscrazy said:

ohdarn said:

People often say that older houses are better constructed but our terraced house was built in 1910 and we can hear pretty much everything from next door.

The kids are pretty much feral and I swear they play drums on the radiator pipes and communicate via screaming. I get kids make noise, we've got two, but sometimes the parents don't seem to bother with controlling certain behaviours.

Plus the parents screaming obscenities at their kids can sometimes get you down.

You think you'll get used to it but actually it seems to get worse. 

I used an MP3 track called BoomBuster to counteract another neighbour that blared out thumpy music all the time and that worked really well at getting rid of the noise. Depends if you can tolerate white noise I guess.

Maybe just do it up and sell it on.

Good luck.

I think we share neighbours haha.  My neighbours are the noisiest I've ever known.  They are screaming now.  No one talks, they scream and it goes on til 3am weekends (i'd say 1am is the norm).  It's like a school playground.  And the doors are banging, they have a sliding wardrobe that shares a wall with my bed and whooooosh crash when it opens and a louder crash each time it closes.  They are on computer games with (I assume) headphones and are screaming random things.  All the voices are super high pitched too.  It's bedlam.  Then it goes quiet for about 30 mins and BOOOOOM it all kicks of again.  The atmosphere must be toxic, I'm sure someone will have a heart attack.  It really can't be healthy.  There's 4 kids ages 5 -18 n the parents.  Oh and the windows always seem to be open.  

It was a shock as an old lady lived there before and I always felt like I was the one being noisy, so I  initially welcomed having a family living there.  I have now kind of got used to it (2 yrs) but everyone nearby has mentioned it.  They know they are super noisy, so there's not much I can do

On a positive note, I do feel more relaxed if I'm making a noise or want to do some diy. I can put my washine on 1 midnight and not have to use the timer - such luxuries eh.  And they are the sort that will do anythings for you, so swings and roundabouts I guess.

Unfortunately anyone is social housing is stuck and has to make the best of it.

My advice, if it's affecting the OPs quality of life, I'd say get out while you can cos you never know what's around the corner.  Suggest sitting in car at tnight near new house before buying to check out ht ambience... try not to look too dodgy though

Haha thanks, fortunately our neighbours do seem quite nice it’s just they do create a fair bit of noise, but like I’ve said the house construction has clearly been very poor. 

I’ve lived in Semi’s all my life and never heard anywhere near as much noise as this, in fact I can say I’ve never heard a neighbour unless they’ve had work being done or a dog has been barking which is fine.

They only moved in 6 months before us, an old couple lived there for 10 years before so we think this is why the previous owner of our place managed to tolerate it.

Might be a blessing they’ve moved in now and not in 2-3 years time once we’ve settled, might be able to escape now!

koalakoala

johnnpaull12 said:

And the major concern would be if we take 15cm off the wall and it doesn’t work.

That leads to us being £5k down, either we have to declare the works done when selling or surveyors pick it up, then it affecting the sale

It won't work, so don't waste your money. Nothing will block out the noise completely. Just plan on moving

drivingmscrazy

You could always say you had soundproofing fitted because you didn't want to disturb neighbours playing music or a musical instrument or liked cinema sound watching movies. It would be quite feasible to do that. Maybe a bonus when selling

johnnpaull12

drivingmscrazy said:

You could always say you had soundproofing fitted because you didn't want to disturb neighbours playing music or a musical instrument or liked cinema sound watching movies. It would be quite feasible to do that. Maybe a bonus when selling

It’s an option I suppose but still quite a risk. One of the main reasons for not risking it is to put that money towards potential moving costs 

Moneybear

OP have you tried a white noise machine? I purchased one from Amazon for no more than £15 and it has been amazing. We have noisy neighbours AND a very noisy nightlife on our doorstep. It helps drown out the noise so we can sleep through most disturbances now. 

ljrw2

I went through a similar experience.  It's all about cheap house building design.  What I did (and it made a big difference) was spend a few hundred pounds at Wickes (for home delivery) of Rockwool sound insulation slabs and equivalent area squared plasterboard sheets - plus wall plugs to secure the slabs and wall cement to dabb on the walls to put the slabs on.  Myself and my father did the entire living room (be prepared to lose about 3 inches of the width of your room, which is a small price to pay).  Result, for a few hundred pounds and a day or two of hard work (DIY) is a livable, quiet living room area of peace.  Do one room and do others (but do the lviing room or bedroom first).  Longer term though, I planned to move into a detached home (living in a detached is wonderful for quality of life) - so plan for that for your 30s, you will never regret it.  Good luck. Check out rockwool slabs on wickes for an idea (for now) - worked for me until I moved - which was a few years ago now.