What’s wrong with my house?

[MissRead]

I’m mid terrace in a row of 3 early 20th century cottages. On one side are a couple (ND2) who I rarely see or hear. On the other is a single person (ND1) who I hear everything from - in my bedroom I can hear conversations they are having in the downstairs rooms.

I can’t understand why I hear so much from one side but not the other. ND2 have a conservatory and there’s a chimney breast between us but that’s the only difference.

The noise is constant and I have spoken to ND1 about it but I can’t ask them to stop talking! I’m more interested to find out what I could do to my house so that I hear as little from that side as I do from the other.

Please can anyone advise? Diagram attached.

I’m not sure, but to hazard a guess, the wall supporting the chimney needed to be stronger and is better constructed than the other. That level of noise travel from the other side does sound awful though and usually something I’ve only experienced in new builds.

It could be that the construction is different between the three houses, or just that neighbour 1 talks more loudly (be thankful they live alone!) a but the way people use the house also counts.

For us, our neighbours' main living rooms are on the far side of the house - our bedroom is next to their spare room, our living room is next to their office, their kitchen is an extension so we don't hear too much. Perhaps room layout is the difference between your two neigbours?

The chimney breast will have made a difference. Could you sacrifice 6 inches of room next time you redecorate to put in some soundproofing? We have built-in bookshelves on the adjoining wall in one room and I think that definitely helps muffle noise, as soundproofing would.

Just hopping on to say I have the same in a similar-aged: chimney side, don't hear a peep, non-chimney wall, hear it all. I've got so used to it I just filter it now.

How would I find out if the construction is different? I guess I'd need a builder.

I bought the house specifically because I'd had noise problems in a new build so it's really frustrating.

I wonder if noisy side has wooden floors and the other has carpet?

Lots of possibilities.

• ND1 are just louder than ND2
• ND1 may have gone for the modern minimalist decor with very little to absorb sound and lots of reflective surfaces, e.g. laminate instead of carpets, perhaps they've stripped the wall plaster for a bare-brick finish.
• The double chimney breast may transmit less sound.
• ND2 may spend more time in the conservatory.
• There may be sound-deadening fitted to one or both sides of the wall between yourselves and ND2.

If you want to make changes, you could fit sound-deadening to the wall between yourselves and ND1. You'd typically lose a couple of inches from the room fitting battens and sound-deadening plasterboard onto the existing wall.

Which side of the houses are the stairs/hall/landing? Although you hear footsteps on the mutual wall they can create a buffer to general household noise.

Your new build was noisy? That's terrible, I thought there were strict regulations in place now to prevent that. Do you know if ND1 has had any big renovations done? I read somewhere that turning a space into an open plan can cause noise to travel more through any new supporting beams that needed to be installed.

We hear everything from one side, barely anything from the other.

We share a chimney stack with noisy side, but they have had the chimmey breasts removed on their side - this means (I assume) that we only have the bare minimum wall thickness between us. They are also very cheap rental flats on that side, and have laminate floors and barely any soft furnishings to absorb the sound. They also appear to have a hyena living there (or at least, that is what one of their laughs sounds like and boy does that sound carry).

Other side we've heard faint music a couple of times and that is it - I think they are naturally quieter, but the acoustic on noisy side must make a difference. We do have our hall/ their hallway on that side, but the upstairs flat living room sides onto our bedroom and I've never even once heard the their tv.

I find houses with converted lofts are much noisier than those without. Whether it's just your house, just the neighbour, or both of you.

I lived in a house with was a terrace of 4 old ex council houses. No noise from one side but the other side was terrible. I could hear everything and I could even smell their cooking.

Our loft was converted but I don't know if theirs was. I was convinced the lofts were once one big shared space with joists running the length of the houses and just a thin partition added between the house roof spaces. It was so awful I didn't stay to find out and sold up after a year.

Same here.

Victorian terrace, one side much noisier than the other, plus it seems to travel all through the house. Both sides have stairs on the opposite side and chimneys next to mine, and both lofts are converted, but mine isn't. It's manageable as my stairs are on the noisy side which creates a bit of a buffer, and at least the latest neighbours don't have a piano. Loud Rachmaninoff from 7am to 10pm was not my cup of tea......

That's interesting about cooking smells, ND1 likes a smoke - not cigarettes - and that smell definitely travels through.

I think ND1's stairs are on the far side so not the wall that adjoins me and I think they have a fairly open plan layout with, as someone said, a modern feel eg laminate etc.

I dont think their loft is converted as such - mine is boarded for storage but not somewhere you could live.