How noisy is living next to a loft conversion project?

[WobbleHead]

New neighbours in 1930s terrace have given us a party wall agreement to sign for a loft conversion project. I am 34 weeks pregnant and am worried about noise when we’re trying to get naps established during the day.

I know that’s not a valid reason to dispute the project, so how best can I prepare for all the noise when the new baby will just be a few weeks old?

I’ve spoken to the (childless) neighbours and they’re willing to wait until the baby is six weeks old before starting.

We’ve had building work done a while ago in our house (ground floor extension) and the disruption and noise for months was grim - we were working from home due to the pandemic.

Have you lived next to a loft conversion project and how noisy was it?

I have! I also live in a terraced where both our neighbours are having massive extensions at the minute.

Not going to lie, the noise drives me around the bend. I have a 11 month old and I swear, the minute I get her down for a nap someone starts up the noisiest machinery known to man. Having to permanently use white noise and even that's not enough to drown it out. I know it's not forever but it certainly feels like it never ends at the time.

Yes, v v noisy, and dusty. But unless you have sound reasons to dispute the agreement, nothing you can do.

Oh blimey

The only way to prepare is probably have a backup place to go when the drilling starts. It was an absolute nightmare when our very lovely next door neighbor decided to convert their attic. I didn't realize how bad the noise was when our nanny told us she had to take my then 11 month old out for hours to hers as she lived close by. She was off one day and I stayed home, only then did I understood what she meant. Utter nightmare and my neighbors went away for the entire three weeks that the work was being done.

If you have spoken to neighbours and they are willing to delay the project that sounds like a good start.

I think if you have had noisy building works done - well your neighbours have had to put up with that.

All I would do is see when it starts where is the quietest place in your house and put baby there. Erecting scaffolding will be noisy but doesn't last that long. I think what you can reasonably ask is that builders don't shout on scaffolding or play loud music. Drilling etc they have to do - but what you may be able to ask as a favour is that they all take their tea breaks / lunch breaks at once so there is a quiet time. Also check with council when they are allowed to do work & perhaps plan naps around that & breaks ?

Probably not a great plan. The other thing I would do is ask the duration of works so you know what you are dealing with.

The better you can get on with neighbours / builders the better
We had some work done & NDN had her daughter staying with her , revising. We asked our builders to try to do quiet jobs for a few days. But she was very nice how she asked - that won't work for a 12 week project but I hope the point stands - the better you get on with your neighbours - usually , if they are nice - the more they will try to accommodate you

It will pass. & Remind yourself it is not forever.

Best wishes @WobbleHead

Ah Basilisk these neighbours moved in last week, they weren’t our neighbours when we had work done.

It was pretty noisy and DS was a toddler, so we went out to relatives when the drilling was on, but that wasn’t for long.
The only time I asked them to be quieter was when the homeowner was shifting the old joists down the stairs and into the skip at 11.30pm. I did think that was a Bit Much. Think he was trying to speed the job along though. We didn’t fall out with them or anything, although I did care quite a lot less about everyday noise from our side from then on!

@WobbleHead - fair play - did not realise that - but I still think the better you can get on and ask nicely ( in the first instance ) the more chance of success - they are going to have to live next door to you after all - so you would hope they would realise that & try to compromise where they can

It was a nightmare. Especially the drilling. I was doing exams from home at the time and was found shouting in the garden on several occasions, because I just couldn't cope anymore.

Fortunately both neighbours were also working form home at the time, so it was done as quickly as possible.

We live in a 1930s semi and our adjoining neighbour had a loft conversion done last year. I have to be honest, I was dreading it - I have quite high anxiety levels about that sort of thing and we’d already gone through another building project of theirs. We also had a baby under one who napped twice a day at least. And I was at home on mat leave and DH was WFH.

It was absolutely fine.

It was mainly fine because we have lovely neighbours who were well aware they would be inconveniencing us to some degree. We have a good relationship with them and could raise anything if we needed to. We are also planning a build ourselves so wanted to show goodwill. Honesty and tolerance on both sides goes a long way!

We agreed to a few scaffolding poles being put on our patio (caused no issues with opening the doors). We also granted loads of parking favours letting neighbours and their tradespeople park on our drive due to local restrictions.

There were a few days of really loud noise in the first or second week involving a lot of drilling. Those were the only days when I thought “Oh God, is it going to be like this throughout?”. Otherwise, the noise was completely manageable. It helped that they were using a super efficient company who did the job in eight weeks flat from scaffolding up to scaffolding down. No work outside normal hours (ie 0730/0800-1700ish).

We did end up with filthy windows from it and quite a lot of dust on the car but it was honestly not a big deal.

We've just come through our neighbours doing a big extension and lift conversion.

I was dreading it as I am super noise sensitive and it's been during lockdown. Tbh though it hasn't been anywhere near as bad as we thought.

There was one or two really really noisy days when they worked on the party wall in the loft. Other than that it's honestly not been too bad.

Most of the noise has been caused by them fitting out the downstairs (kitchen etc).

Having said all that I've not been trying to get a baby to sleep in the middle of the day. You might have to take baby out for naps.

Ok guys this is reassuring thank you.

I haven’t lived next door to a conversion but we had ours done last year and I don’t think it was that bad. Certain jobs are noisier than others but they seemed to move onto different jobs regularly. My husband worked from home throughout the build and we continued to live here. Our neighbours certainly didn’t complain.

Our neighbours are currently having a loft conversion. They haven’t moved in yet. The new staircase is going on our party wall. All in all it’s a bloody nightmare! We had 4 weeks of drilling / hammering / demolition with all their windows open and their radio on full blast, until I eventually lost my rag and told them to turn it off as I was recovering from Covid, had to leave windows open and couldn’t stand the sound. (I wasn’t ill but they weren’t to know. Their vans keep blocking the access to our garage, which we use daily. They claim not to be able to get hold of a skip so there’s a ton of rubbish outside our back gate. They start work at 7am, and work til 7pm on the days when they bother to turn up. Yesterday one of the workmen thought it would be ok to piss against my fence! He got a shock when I banged on the window and he pissed down his leg 🤣

I’d just add that we’ve had our baby granddaughter staying once or twice, and she has a white noise machine in her bedroom - it drowned out the building noise well enough to ensure she could sleep.

Urg this fills me with dread. 1930s semi and our neighbours are planning to start loft AND two storey rear and side extension in the Spring. We have two one year olds and both wfh :(

Speak to neighbours - not sure 7 until 7 is allowed for noisy building

I would have thought from your perspective the sooner they start the better. If you’re only 34 weeks now, that’s potentially 6-8 weeks of work they could be doing before your baby arrives. I guess they’re probably not ready to start yet though.

It's gonna be very noisy unfortunately.
Personally I would rather they started ASAP as you still have about a month to go and baby doesn't usually need to have a routine till about 3-4mo and hopefully would be able to nap in a pram or car when out and about.
It's not ideal but the sooner the better IMO.

Our neighbours are having a "garden room" extension built at the moment. We are in week 6 of the project and I want to die. The noise and difficult access (ie our drive blocked a lot) is causing me massive anxiety. I tell myself it will end, but it has really spoiled my summer.

Made worse by un co-operative neighbours, whose attitude is "we can't change anything so there's no point you asking any questions about it and you can always go out" (We're shielding from covid in the highest infection rate area of England).

And our houses are detached.

Your neighbours sound as though they will be more communicative than ours, so hopefully you can negotiate when the noise will happen, and when you might get some respite.

Defo I'd add the earlier they start the better, younger babies should sleep through the noise as long as they're fed, warm and comfy.

The thing I remember from doing our loft conversion was it was autumn time and lots of rain/wind the plastic used until it was watertight was a real pain, on windy nights it was very noisy with flapping plastic and scaffolding creaking.
However loft conversions are one of the quickest builds you can do, usually much quicker than an extension.

We had a newborn this summer on our own building site (would not recommend 🤪), I would deffo agree with pp that actually it’s better for the builders to get the noisy bit out of the way when baby is youngest as they won’t have much of a routine yet and are pretty adaptable to sleeping wherever and whenever. After 6 weeks is when you might want to be establishing a routine and putting baby down for naps a bit more, so would be more frustrating for interrupted naps. Also second the recommendation for white noise machine to help.
The noisiest bit will be when they are drilling directly into your party wall, but even then our newborn did manage to sleep through that when she was wee!

so when you had building work done it was fine , but now somebody else wants to it’s not fine ? Wow, entitled much?
think they were being VERY accommodating offering to delay it at all for you.
You just have to deal with it. The world doesn’t revolve around you

I'd let them get started earlier to be honest. Babies nap pretty easily in the 1st couple of months in my experience. It's when they hit the 4 month sleep regression that they get woken up easily and naps become stressful. My first hit the regression at 4 months and 2nd just under 3 months.