New Build House Internal noise

[Alfie1985]

Hi,

It has been 4 weeks since we moved into our new REDROW Homes new build house.

I have always had family who owned older victorian properties so have little experiece with new build.

Our house is a 4 Bedroom house which has 2 bathrooms upstairs.
The problem i have is:

a) you can hear all the noise downstairs when people are walking upstairs

But that is not even the main problem. The problem i have is when someone is using the upstairs bathrooms you can hear all the water noises. You can hear the noise from the toilet being flushed. The toilet basin being refilled an as the water hits the basin as it refilled you can hear it all downstairs.

Effectively if someone was go upstairs and fart in the toilet you could hear it downstairs. Now i have spoken to someone who owns a new build and he said you cant hear any noise from his bathroom.

Can someone help and advise me if this is normal or should i raise this with REDROW. Surely it cant be normal for every drop of water that hits the shower tray - the toilet - the sink - it should be able to be heard downstairs.

Someone times it feels like its raining as you can hear all the noise of the water rushing around the house when someone is upstairs

Can someone help please.

Alfie

Unfortunately many new builds are like this even though it’s pretty grim. YANBU to want better sound proofing.

Yes this is normal. Of course you'll hear people walking upstairs, the gap between the ceiling downstairs and the floorboards upstairs is the depth of a floor joist.

The house we are in was built in 1973 and we can certainly hear all of that. If someone is on the throne and rips out a real good fart, it's a great source of amusement to the rest in the lounge. When that happens, I'm just glad we are detached!!

I have a new build and can hear my neighbours flushing their loo. If the house is very quiet, I can hear my bf on the ensuite loo (Sits above the kitchen) Unfortunately that's just how new builds are. Made cheap, sold overpriced.

That sounds awful... New builds seem to be made out of paper. Maybe you could get some sound proofing underlay upstairs, see if that helps to reduce voices travelling. Not sure what you can do about the water noises without ripping the house apart.

Lived in a redrow house for 11 years, that is normal the house is made out of cardboard, won’t be long until things start falling apart and door handles start falling off if it’s anything like ours

Never had that issue in the one I owned but can hear more in current house built in 1972

Our house was built in the 20’s (1920’s) and we struggle to hear each other shouting from room to room, but you can hear the toilet flush, I think it’s quite a penetrating noise.

We can hear everything in our 1960's house, between rooms, floors and also from next door (who are very noisy...). It's awful. I'd also lived in 1920/Victorian terraces/flats before and couldn't hear anything so it was a shock when we moved in here. Think it's just modern construction methods, my friend recently bought a 1980's estate house and I think hers is worse than ours, the ceilings shake when anyone walks around in the landing and bedrooms!

Hi All,

Thank you very much for your responses.
I don't mind the noise between rooms etc it is understandable.

It's when I am in the living room and any one uses the ensuite or the main bath room you can hear all the water noises across the ceiling.

For example of you use the shower you can hear all the noise of the water hitting the shower tray. It's so noisey as if the room downstairs will flood

You can buy sound roofing materials and retro fit then then re decorate. It's the only way to combat it. Take videos of before, during installation and after it's fitted for use if you ever sell to show you have upgraded the home, as it's otherwise invisible. This can then be mentioned in your sakes particulars .

No that's not normal it must be paper thin tbf

Our house was built in 1990's and yes you can hear all the sounds from upstairs in the downstairs rooms. When we have our en-suite redone we will be getting soundproofing put in (under the floor and between the bathroom and the bedroom) but i don't think it will stop all the noise as some of it echoes through the pipework.

Like bigbluebus I live in a 1990s house. I can hear everything that happens upstairs, my husband is walking around upstairs now and I’m in the lounge, I can hear every footstep. And yes showers are noisy. This is a private estate of very expensive houses. I’m going for a Victorian terrace next time!

I live in a 1950's bungalow and hear things moving about up stairs sometimes.

I've stayed with friends in two different new builds and was horrified by the noise, just like you describe. Our 1960s semi is nothing like that, much more muffled

This sounds horrendous, another reason to go on the list of never get a new build.

I'm surprised people aren't up in arms about this and got it sorted as it sounds like it's been going on since the 80s and even 70s in some cases.

Awful. 40 years of crap houses, no matter how nice the rest if the house, thus would be a deal breaker for me. I'm surprised people out going crazy at all that extra noise inside their homes.

You can buy something called Soundeck which is 37 mm sound proof board that sits on the joists.

I live in a new build (5 years old) and the internal sound is better than in our old 1930s house 🤷‍♀️

My house is 30 years old and the bathrooms upstairs are the only rooms that you can't hear anything. I'm wondering if the previous owner soundproofed those 2 rooms because you hear everything else from other rooms.