loft conversion - advice how to cope!

[ithaca26]

My neighbour is having her loft converted (adjoining semi) I am dreading the noise levels. I have sensitive hearing where noise seems louder than it actually is to others - if anyone shouts near me it literally hurts. I work for myself at home so am really dreading the whole thing. How have you coped? any tips? is it really bad all day long or are there quieter periods.
I have only just started to relax after DD going off to Uni and now this!

I haven't had one so no actual experience but I would expect it depends very much on what sort of conversion they are having. some will be very straightforward and therefore probably require a lot less building/noisy work than others.

Has the neighbour given you a rough timeplan etc? I don't think it would unreasonable to ask for some sort of timeline of how long the work is expected to take, when is likely to be noisiest in the works etc. Or ask the builder for the same

I think you'll want to be elsewhere when the steels go in, which was very noisy but only lasted a day. Cutting the structural wood was also incredibly noisy as they used an angle grinder. Standard loft conversions don't take all that long to do the build though, a couple of weeks really, then it will all be inside stuff and less noisy, or roofing which is pretty quite too. My builders only work from 8 til about 2pm. I don't think this is standard, but most builders seem to want to start early and finish early. For the kids, we have the TV on very loud, as the familiar noise seems to be less upsetting than the builder noise.

thanks for the insight, neighbour said its about a 6 week job. I will have to see how it goes. She has almost promised that no work will take place at weekends unless they run very behind (eek) my DS doesnt work on a Friday and is already moaning about the early start! If I didnt have two cats I would move in with my mum who is 100 miles from here - sounds about right!

We had ours done this year. Took about six weeks, but the first week was the only really noisy one. As Mummytomog has said, it is the day they put the steels in that you'll really want to be elsewhere. I expect your neighbour will have been given an approx timetable - we were given one, so we knew who to expect when. Our builders were in roughly 9-5 every day, and most of them liked to have a radio on, but not very loudly. The only work we had at a weekend was plastering (sub-contacted from loft company to plasterer, work was running behind, so he decided to do it on a Sunday).

Noise canceling headphones?

Our neighbours have been having theirs converted for the last 11 weeks!! Very noisy and starting to drive me a bit mad now...

Are you my neighbours? Sorry if you are, but they've moved onto the extension now. We will bring you wine and chocolates though, and have that manky leylandii hedge on the shared boundary sorted out.

urghhh 11 weeks! I guess it depends on what work is involved - how big etc. Do noise cancelling headphones work sufficiently for that kind of volume? I struggle when the gardeners come to do about 3 gardens around me with their leaf blowers and powerful mowers and trimmers, I literally get so agitated and it lasts 45 minutes max. I predict a nervous twitch at the end of it all:-(

No, I'm not! But I'm sure yours will be grateful . I get on well with mine, so it's fine, but the noise does takes its toll. I've never tried headphones. The noise is intermittent - drilling, bashing etc. I think the worst of it is that you never know what the day has in store!