Things to look for when buying a new home to enjoy some peace?

[WildFlowerBees]

We're looking for a new house, granted unless you live completely isolated there will be noise to contend with. I wonder are there tell tale signs to look for when buying a house?

We're looking semi rural and obviously things like near a school etc, but are there any less obvious things?

Not near a fire station!

Or a farm with cockerels.
Near any military bases that could have big trucks passing.

Basketball hoops in next door's garden are definitely to be avoided!

I wanted quiet. So I bought a bungalow. Nothing but the elderly round here. Quietest place ever.

Hot tubs in the neighbours garden (view from upstairs!!)

Go park up after 6pm. Are ddogs chucked out barking? Feral dc on bikes /scooters /quads?

Dog boarding kennels are mostly semi rural. Dogs barking would definitely be on my things to avoid list.

The first house I bought was a lovely little cottage next to a rarely used graveyard, was very quite.

Problem is that you can scope out as much as you like and find the place totally silent, then the week after you move in the house next door goes up for sale and is bought by a family of ten with a trampolining habit and forty five rescue dogs.

Have you joined the Facebook group for the local area?

I would have known which bits of the town I’d want to avoid (sewage works I didn’t realise existed, annoying teens on a local ‘naice’ estate etc) also the woods near me belong to the MOD and they practice occasionally.

one thing I have noticed moving here from a much more built up area is because there are lots of big gardens and trees the chain saw is a regular background noise and if one neighbour gets out the lawnmower or hedge trimmer someone else feels they need to do likewise.

That fictional family would deffo have a hot tub too 😂

No trampolines on gardens

Houses that back onto schools are generally quiet in the evenings and weekends. The opposite is true for parks and playgrounds.
Neighbours with hot tubs and trampolines aren't necessarily noisy but will make noise, whereas garden bars, built outdoor kitchens and fire pits generally suggest party people.
Our previously lovely neighbours (long garden so we never even heard their parties) bought yappy dogs over COVID and have never trained them. They wake us every morning and have significantly impacted our enjoyment of our home and garden. No one visiting our house for a viewing would be able to tell. It's a risk you run having neighbours.
If you live in the middle of nowhere I suppose that distant road noise or an airport flight path might drive you mad over time.

Don't buy if there is a shared drive or parking area

A school wouldn’t bother me at all. I’d be far more alert for neighbours with hot tubs / outdoor bars. And general condition of neighbours houses, like if there’s loads of rubbish around their house. You’ll never avoid it completely so don’t be too disappointed if there is some noise

Trampolines, hot tubs, basketball hoops, outdoor bars or quad bikes - if any of these feature around the neighbours properties steer clear

Once lived near a park which was quiet during the week, few kids having a kick about, dog walkers.
But Sundays it transformed into proper pitches and was football all day long with shouting and swearing and arseholes parking everywhere and turning the pavement into a mud slick from banging the mud off their boots on it before getting in their badly parked cars.

Not too near a pub or an industrial estate, some industrial estates are in semi rural locations.

Church bells.

I was going to say this

I live in a detached bungalow surrounded by very tall hedges - can’t even see another house , bliss ! My best advice is detached if you can .