How can we reduce traffic noise in our new house?

[Livelaughplay]

Our new house is so loud from road traffic and trains. The trains I can deal with but when I just used an app to measure noise, the upstairs with windows open a bit are about 64 decibels, windows shut is 58 decibels and the garden is about 70! We do plan to replace the windows as they're old, so that might help when they're shut, but I like to have the window open to sleep, but this noise is insane. I know I can wear ear plugs which is fine, but what about the kids. Apparently WHO guidelines say these levels are really disruptive to health. The garden is going to be unenjoyable, but that was one of the reasons we bought the house!

I said this to DH when we viewed, but it's honestly perfect in every other way, this is the one massive, and increasingly larger, compromise. We are about 300m from an A road, with not much in between but fields, although I can't see the road at all, although don't know if this will still be the case once the leaves have come off.

Reasonably, what can I do? Are there special windows? But what about when they're open in summer? Mechanical ventilation? What does that feel like? I love an open window!

I am having serious regret at it feels like the whole village when I'm walking around is plagued by the road noise. I did say before we bought, but DH insisted I was being over-sensitive about it (which I know I can be), but having measured, I really don't think I am and now it's too late!

I also have a general case of buyers remorse, so I'm trying to work through things and find solutions and not catastrophise!

Help!

Thanks everyone, this is really helpful. If anyone has any experience of mechanical ventilation and retrofitting it, that would be really helpful too

We have MVHR and the air is very fresh because ot runs 24/7 and does not depend on the wind direction or remembering to open things or switch them on. In "summer" mode there is no heat recovery it just brings in cool air.

It means you don't have any vents directly to outside so good for keeping out noise.

I would add though that my main "buyer's remorse" issue when we moved here was alao road noise (we had been super remote before) and I steadily got used to it. It helped when I re-framed it as "people going about their business" - a kind of unintrusive sort of company 😁

Triple glazing works very well if the inner glass has PVB acoustic interlayer. You need the viscoelastic property to actually absorb the sound waves and stop them carrying through.

The whole thing with cutting decibels is to stop vibrations being transmitted. That's why acoustic caulk works - it keeps an elasticity that absorbs the vibrations instead of vibrating the frame against the glass and the wall.

Hope one of these suggestions works for you OP. Especially at night.

A garden wall will help. To block traffic noise, a barrier has to be close to the road, or close to the listener.

A patch of well grown trees will muffle and absorb noise.

Glazing can help. Secondary glazing is better that double glazing pages for noise blocking, with a wide gap. The thicker and heavier the glass the more effective it is. I have 6.5mm laminated glass in some patio doors, which is about the thickest in normal domestic use. Double glazing with new windows helps, but fitters often leave a gap between the window frame and the wall (a tight fut is harder to install) and hudden eith plastic trim, which needs to be filled to block noise passing through the gap. Expanding foam will do but is quite hard to install fully without mess.

Secondary glazing also allows you to retain original features in an older house. Old windows are often gappy and draughty, fix that with silicone rubber draught strip or possibly wooden strips. Filling gaps closes an easy route for noise penetration. Heavy curtains will also muffle it. If you become Prime Minister you can have thick armour glass fitted.

You have to chose between sleeping with the windows open, and complaining about the noise.

I don't think it's so expensive in itself, the unit which does half a dozen rooms is a few hundred euros but installing it in a old house is not straightforward because you need ducts. We had it in a really very old house right in a city centre and it was pretty good on the fresh air front, when you clean the filters it's amazing how much it takes out. If you have tall rooms you can hide it all in a false ceiling easily.

Triple glazing is really quite expensive though but in your situation might be money well spent.

Like some others on this thread I once had a house with a train line into Liverpool Street about 20 metres away and really it was only a matter of weeks before I stopped hearing it.

I live in a similar location. We have triple glazing.

We've been there 15 years, all sleep with the windows open.

The only thing that bothers us is a regular-ish group of bikers that roar past at 5am on summer Sunday mornings.

I genuinely dont notice noise otherwise, and I would say I'm a person who is generally quite noise sensitive. I complained to the neighbours about their washing machine, that bothered me with 3am finishes, but the road doesn't.

You may surprise yourself, with what you get used to. I live in London between a thunderous A road and the river, next door is a Heliport and we are on the Heathrow flight path. 😁

Visitors notice, but we don't so much anymore. Yours sounds like a rural idyl in comparison. Give it some time.

How long have you lived there? We were a stone’s throw from the railway and after a month or two didn’t hear it at all. We moved last year a bit further from the railway and are closer to the road (another stones throw) and have quickly gotten used to it. We do have tall trees and the noise is way less than our friends further down the road who live the same distance away with no trees. I sleep with the window open at night and it never wakes me up. The only time was when a tree fell on the road!

Triple glazing, a tall fence, thick hedge.

Triple glazing plus Aircon keep windows shut ? Won't help the garden though sorry

Thank you - how did you install it? Is it a whole house thing or can I just do the upstairs or something? I love fresh air, so it does appeal to me. Glad to hear you got used to it. And useful advice about the reframing - I think this is why the train doesnt bother me, because I'm really glad to be able to use the train, and I dont want to live in the middle of nowhere, so I don't mind being near a road, it's just a bit much!

Great - thank you. I will check it's an acoustic one when we come to order.

Haha maybe time to become a politician after all! Maybe some very tall trees directly in front of my window will help in time. I will pay good attention to window choice and fitters and make sure I get something that's going to make a difference. All the windows are old and quite ugly, so upgrading them is already somewhat in our budget. They were flagged as being bad on the EPC

Our last-but-two house was in a village that straddled a rural A-road and whilst it wasn't the busiest of roads, we got a lot of heavy farm traffic passing through. So much so that our three-storey Georgian thatched house regularly shook...not helped because we were at the foot of a hill so traffic bumped when hitting the bottom.

We were set reasonably far back from the road, but had no front garden separating us from the traffic and its associated noise. We had a huge 0.3 acre garden at the back - if only the house had been in the centre of the plot 🙄

Our windows were old, single-glazed, so when we replaced them we went for double glazed sashes with acoustic glass. Unfortunately it barely made a difference. We should have opted for triple glazing but by then (three years in) we were already considering selling and we had so many windows (ten at the front alone!), that the cost seemed prohibitive. In hindsight we should have fitted secondary glazing. Instead we sold up.

In five years you might find electric vehicle use is so much higher that it is a lot quieter.

What about a water feature in the garden? I find a bubbling fountain or small waterfall really helps distract.

I'm very sensitive to noise - I've worn earplugs for decades. But I once lived in a converted house flat 30m away from a dual carriageway and 80m away from a main railway line. I thought I'd never cope but I got used to it really quickly. It becomes white noise. Old house, not much sound insulation either.
I've been in my current house 25y and I've still not got used to the bloody pigeons.

Triple glazing is £££ but worth every penny.
A relative lived literally next door to London City Airport, amd the airport paid for their triple glazing. It made such a difference.

Yes, or a fish tank gently bubbling away indoors can help distract and mask the sounds

Is it noisy as soon as they open windows though? And how does the air quality feel?

Yes, its noisy as soon as they open their windows but they have air con.

We also used to live in a high street with the tube running under our flat and a train line nearby! We only had double glazing though. We'd get a fine, black soot on the windows that faced the road which I'm sure was full of chemicals. We researched alot and bought an air purifier. Many of the smaller, one room things are useless and don't actually clean the air. We got an IQ Air filter. It was expensive and swiss, but you could smell the difference in the air inside! They also do an asthma version too,

www.iqair.com/gb/products/air-purifiers/gc-multigas-xe-room-air-purifier?GC+MultiGas+XE+%7C+Room+Air+Purifier+%28Style%29=UK+Plug+Type+G

there are quite a few plants that will grown rapidly.

I've seen espaliere technique used for space-efficient tree coverage (that was for privacy rather than noise.

I had heard lots of trees can help, but that would cost a fortune or have to wait a few years.
As a teenager we moved quite near a railway line. For the first month or so we could hear each one and the morning 'milk train' used to wake us up at about 5am. After that nobody woke up and we all zoned out of the noise, no more bother.

Think about having a water feature in the garden. Listening to running water will drown out some of the road noise.

Yet it was quite an undertaking - included making holes through ceilings and a couple of walls and a lot of time clambering in the loft . The fan unit itself is also pretty big (a bit like a flat washing machine ie as tall but not as deep) We were lucky to be able to use some redundant chimneys as well. Main benefit for us was that this old, slightly damp house isn't damp any more, but there is never a cold draught so we are never tempted to shut the ventilation off. Also my dh likes not being woken by the dawn chorus at 4am in midsummer ! (Seriously 😅)

And yes a pp said, it's amazing what gets caught on the filter - lot of woodburners round here and they often look quite black!