Moving just for the area?

[Aquarelles]

I currently live in a small 2 bed semi. It's just me and the dog, so it's a fine size for what I need.

The garden is private and a manageable size. Private driveway for 2 cars. The whole house was completely gutted top to bottom before I bought it, so everything inside is brand new. I've lived here for 13 months. It's also a stones throw (5 minute drive) from work. I'm 99% office based.

My only issue with it is, it's right off a busy road and there's traffic noise constantly. Lorries thundering up and down. Police sirens. Boy racers with their loud exhausts.

It doesn't bother me in the winter time because I'm inside, but it really irritates me in the summer when I'm sat outside in the garden. It's the only noise that bothers me. I've got neighbours either side but they're lovely and quiet.

I've just come back from a couple of days "in the country" where all I could hear were birds chirping, and it was blissfully quiet.

Would it be ridiculous to consider moving somewhere 30 minutes away just to (try to) chase the peace and quiet? The new house wouldn't be any bigger than I currently have, and I'd be giving myself a bigger commute when I already work long hours.

all I could hear were birds chirping, and it was blissfully quiet.

At 4am on a summer morning, those chirping birds are bloody annoying! Wait until farmers are doing the hay, muck spreading and separating lambs /calves from their mothers. The countryside is a really noisy place! That said, I’d prefer it to sirens and endless traffic, but good neighbours are worth their weight in gold.

We moved last year from a main road. The noise never bothered us really but our new house is on a fairly quiet road, and we can hear nothing from our back garden except the birds and the occasional hum of a lawn mower. It is actual bliss and makes us realise how noisy our old house was!

Is there a happy medium- move somewhere off a main road 15 mins out? I think an hour a day commuting is quite long and will increase your bills with fuel and wear and tear. However, I couldn’t live on a main road so agree move away

We moved about 5 miles from the centre of a town to the outskirts, overlooking the sea.

My only issue with it is, it's right off a busy road and there's traffic noise constantly. Lorries thundering up and down. Police sirens. Boy racers with their loud exhausts

My sympathies. I live in what most people would consider a very rural area. Yet, I have the exact same experience as you. On our road there's regular large lorries, tractors, vans going up & down constantly in the day. At times I've seen more than 1 tractor in a minute. On top of that, there is a military base in North Wales and they use several areas to train fighter jet pilots, but those aren't too bad compared to the constant lorry noise. On sunny days, it's common to hear very loud motorbikes as they like to tour the countryside. I often can't have a call when the widow's open and if someone's trying to talk to me from the landing, I often can't hear them at all if the windows open.

All of that starts at 6.30am, and one of the noises that often wake me up is framers and their trailers bumping & clattering along the road. When I was growing up here, it was farm animals.

My point is be careful which road you pick and go there at different points of the day. There are industrial sites in the country, like active mines which can increase road traffic.

Honestly, I had a much quieter road traffic noise come through when I lived in the middle of a city!

I would never live near a busy road. Noisy yes but the air pollution is a serious health hazard.

Most local authorities measure air pollution near busy roads and here's a report of a Michael Mosley programme about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3mXHDs31VgMfhdlhDngnBdN/should-i-worry-about-air-pollution#:~:text=If%20you%20live%20on%20a,also%20contributes%20to%20air%20pollution.

If its making you feel miserable I would move but you have to be careful as currently you have nice quiet neighbours and that is sometimes rare. Trust me

Is it directly on the main road, or on a side street off it?
Is it an A road?