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Original poster

what can we do to block traffic noise in property we want to buy?

26 replies

vannah · 26/01/2008 20:45

Hello,

We have just seen a property for sale we'd love to buy but sadly its on the main road. With cars driving pretty fast and regular buses going by. It is a fairly run down property so would need complete renovating, but does currently have double glazing..
Which, I thought offered SOME but not nearly enough noise blockage.

DOes secondary double glazing really work, or will it just make a marginal difference?

Is there anything else that could be done?

And furthermore, are properties on the main road generally harder to sell? (this one's been on the market for 3 months)

thankyou

OP posts:
LIZS · 26/01/2008 20:51

Secondary glazing may help. We are on a busy road and have wooden framed double glazing which isn't the best tbh. Previsou house had secondary and we felt rather than heard noise form the railway. Shrubbery between house and road could help. We find the road is worst between 7 and 9 and 4.30 and 6 weekdays. After that it really isn't so much of an issue.

Hard to tell on resell - our surveyor made a comment but we bought because fo its village location when good property was scarce in the area before it went on the open market.

fishie · 26/01/2008 20:59

how old is it? i live in a victorian house on a main road.

bestignored · 26/01/2008 21:02

Just wanted to say that if you did go ahead and you wanted to disguise some of the traffic noise in the garden then bamboo is fantastic. (make sure you get a non invasive variety. The swishing sounds made by bamboo disguises the traffic noise quite effectively.

Do you mean triple glazing as opposed to double? Secondary double is put inside single glazing I thought (blimen awful waste of money too IME). If the current double glazing is old you may find that replacing it with newer double glazing helps quite a bit. Our DG is old and the frames don't fit as well as they should. You could also consider triple glazing - don't know much about that myself.

Generally properties on main roads down my way (rural SW) are usually given a lower valuation - if the vendor doesn't like the low price and keeps the price at that of a property located somewhere more quiet then the property can be on the market for ages. If the house is unusual in any way (a fantastic development opportunity for eg) then the price doesn't seem to be affected. There are always exceptions though - there was a lovely toll house for sale locally for a really good price but it was sandwiched between two main roads. It was on the market for 3 years and sold for much lower than the already low asking price.

If the traffic noise is quite constant you might find it just becomes background noise quite quickly.

jalopy · 26/01/2008 21:44

Can you hear the traffic when you're in the back garden? That would drive me up the wall. I couldn't buy it.

GrapefruitMoon · 27/01/2008 10:43

When we moved into our house (on a main road) it already had double glazing. However, dh was doing shift work at the time so we added secondary glazing in our bedroom - which is at the front of the house. It really has made a difference.

The traffic noise doesn't really bother us in the rest of the house - the house is deep rather than wide so the back of the house is further away from the noise. We don't tend to use the front living room much during the day. I suppose we are lucky in that cars are not racing by and it quietens down a lot at night. I've been in other houses where the noise is more intrusive, especially when windows are open.

hatwoman · 27/01/2008 10:47

we used to live on a main road and I think lay-out is actually a key consideration. our bedroom was at the front - which was a nightmare in summer - we had to choose between being woken at 6 am or being stifflingly hot. the sitting room was also at the front - though that didn;t bother us too much. personally I think that if you can arrange the house so that your day-time/busy rooms are at the front and your relaxing/evening rooms at the back it would make a huge difference to how much the noise impacts on your life.

Onlyaphase · 27/01/2008 10:49

Our last house was on the main road going through the village - lots of commuter traffic and buses etc. House was perfect in every way other than the road, but having lived there for 4 years we would never live next to a road again, due to noise (both in house and garden), dirt from the road covering the windows and people walking past looking in your windows. Plus the ongoing problems of not getting your cats and dogs run over.

We sold pretty quickly, but the road put a lot of buyers off, and the valuation was at least £100-150K below what it would have been had the house been 30 meters away from the road.

I would say there is no point in buying a house that is great in every way apart from the road unless you think it won't ever bother you, and you accept the fact it will reduce the value of the house.

hatwoman · 27/01/2008 10:50

hmm. my theory isn;t quite the same as grapefruit's. she's posibly right about the sitting room - but the main bedroom thing does impact on you a lot if it's at the front.

hatwoman · 27/01/2008 10:52

onlyaphase - the value thing works both ways - yes you sell it cheaper but you buy it cheaper too - it's not as if it's something that progressivley reduces the value. when we bought on a main road we got a lot more for our money than we could have afforded on a quiet road.

hatwoman · 27/01/2008 10:53

thinking about it I grew up in a house on a main road - without double glazing - and it was fine. but it was a rural area and very quiet at night. and the day-time orientation was very much towards the back of the house (scrap my sitting room theory)

expatinscotland · 27/01/2008 10:57

Properties on main roads are harder to sell unless they're of the type geared to professionals, students or people with no children.

Any time you have a home on a main road it's going to put off buyers with young children and pets, for obvious reasons.

I'd give it a miss.

I lived on main roads for years in flats designed for young professionals and after a while we didn't even hear the noise but a) we were 3 floors up at a minimum b) we were hard sleepers back then - no kids, going out a lot.

GrapefruitMoon · 27/01/2008 10:58

I think it depends on whether the traffic noise is pretty constant or just during the day.... as I said it dies down a lot on my street in the evening - but would still probably be unbearable if we didn't have double glazing. My neighbour doesn't and it is a lot more intrusive in her front living room than mine...

If it wasn't for the fact that the front of our house is open plan it probably would be better to have our playroom at the front and living room at the back!

Original poster
vannah · 27/01/2008 13:26

thankyou everyone for these replies, to answer some of the questions, it is a 1930's property. My dh was also thinking about putting secondary double glazing (another set of windows, leaving a gap between the original double glazing already in place). And yes, the traffic noise can easily be heard in the garden, mostly because of the inredible speed with which the cars are passing.
Lots of points to consider here, we are making an appointment to see the property in the evening to see if there is any difference with the traffic.

OP posts:
NKF · 27/01/2008 13:27

They're harder to sell and they fetch lower prices.

NKF · 27/01/2008 13:27

They're harder to sell and they fetch lower prices.

redadmiral · 27/01/2008 13:29

I've lived with traffic noise and it's do-able, but have read that noise, especially noise which isn't constant - kind of stop and starting - can actually have quite a negative affect on your state of mind. Will you be able to kee the windows closed in the summer, etc?

expatinscotland · 27/01/2008 13:32

we have secondary glazing and i hate it.

it's such a PITA to clean the windows, and we only have it because the windows are the original single glazed sash ones with stained glass upper pain in a period house.

i would not want the secondary glazing if we didn't have to have them.

cars going at a high rate of speed on a busy road. hmmm.

sounds like that's going to be hard to sell later on if it's a family house.

hatwoman · 27/01/2008 13:55

harder to sell = easier to buy. you do both.

NKF · 27/01/2008 13:56

That is true HW.

hippipotami · 27/01/2008 16:26

My friend bought a house on a busy road recently. It has cars, lorries etc whizzing past at up to 40 but it seems faster.

She bought it because it overlooks woodland to the front, and fields of horses to the rear.
At first we all thought she was mad. But now, over a year later, we can all say she was so right to buy it. The noise is relatively constant. She has enclosed the front garden in featheredge 6ft fence panels. It blocks out a fair bit of noise. Behind the house she has plenty of shrubs and trees all of which are very leafy and blow in the wind.
Yes you can hear the roadnoise in the garden, but to be honest it soon blends into the distance, even for those who don't live there and only come to visit (and thus don't get used to hearing the noise constantly)
In the house she has fab double glazing, and even with the small windows open for ventilation the noise is not really noticeable.

If the house is the right one for you, then go for it!

My friend very rightly pointed out that a house in that location (fields and woods) would not be within her budget if it wasn't for the road. So in a way she has a bit of a love/hate relationship with the road.

luciemule · 27/01/2008 16:30

We lived in a naval house,for the last 2 years, which had triple glazing due to the jump jets and other aircraft noise.

It also had an air filtration system in the attic so that you could have the windows shut in summer and still have fresh air coming in. It did reduce the noise dramatically but we had to turen off the filtration system in winter as it was so cold!

Onlyaphase · 27/01/2008 16:55

Hatwoman - you are of course right re house prices - we got a lot more for our money when we bought, and knew the downsides.

There is a lot you can do re noise and people looking in your windows, but it depends IMO if you think you will get used to the noise. I tuned out the road noise pretty quickly, as did DH, but the thing he never got over was the pavement running just by the windows of the living room. Different people get bothered by different things, so I guess what I am trying to say is that yes, you can get used to anything given time, but if I had a choice, I wouldn't buy on a road again.

noddyholder · 27/01/2008 17:00

we bought a maisonette above a shop a few yrs ago and i fell in love with it and the price! which was low for the size and style of property but dp and I never got used to it and the buses going past when we were trying to watch tv drove us mad and neither of us could sleep.When we came to sell it was difficult and teh girl who bought it is trying to sell atm and is having a nightmare.She was single and a real girl about town and the noise did't bother her so it depends on how you adapt to noise

Bhav1 · 29/02/2008 11:40

Hi there,

New member here but facing an old problem! Live on a corner plot where the garden fencing faces a busy road.

I have had some people in to quote me to plant some conifer trees but its not realy feasible.

Could not help noting the use of bamboo to help with the noise.

If I've already got fencing (basic 6ft wodden fencing) around the garden, how can I use bamboo to help with the noise please?

Waiting in anticipation!

Bhavna

robi17 · 31/07/2018 07:13

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