Road noise is annoying and it’s not different from any other kind of sound. It’s a pressure wave traveling through the air. When you’re interrupting the wave, you’re actually blocking the sound from attaining the pressure-sensitive membranes from your eardrums.
Little that you know that you can noise reduction in your home isn’t only about great windows. There are so many things that contribute to having less street noise in our home.
Page Contents
Can you do anything outside your house?
It makes sense that planting some trees or thick bushes isn’t going to stop the street noise getting into your house. the landscape does matter, nevertheless. Point a spray hose at your yard. if water can pass through, so do the sound waves. Adding a waterfall or a fountain that has its very own noise is going to be a lot more effective than simply blocking with the yard.
Look for the sources that give a nice white noise that is going to lower the impact of the road noise.
What about the walls?
Ideally, you want a strong wall that is pretty tall. You should have an 8-ft tall fence with no holes whatsoever. This is a strong 8-ft wall is going to mean 10 decibels of sound reduction.
A shorter wall isn’t going to be as effective when it comes to noise reduction. However, it’s important to have one. The noise caused by cars travels fast and easy into your home.
What can you do inside your house?
Soundproofing your house is going to be the best solution when you want to reduce the outside noise. For instance, a concrete home is really quiet, but it’s really difficult to get there. You need to seal all cracks and holes between the interior and the exterior. Adding some tough insulation, placing storm windows over the current ones and upgrading the windows- these are only a few of the efficient ways for noise reduction in your home.
Let’s learn how to walk before we run. Sometimes, simple tricks are going to lower the noise enough for you getting a good night sleep.
Here are the ways for lowering the street noise in your home:
- Get some industrial strength earplugs
Never underestimate the efficiency of a good pair of earplugs. The market gives us so many options to choose from. not only that they’re reliable and effective, but you can also get the industrial-strength brand in bulk online. They’re disposable so in case you lose one, you may simply get another pair.
- Have you considered hanging a curtain above the door?
Want a dramatic feel in your home? Installing a curtain rod right above the bedroom door and hanging a thick, sound absorbing curtain is going do amazing tricks. This way, most of the sound coming through the walls is only coming through the cracks around the door.
- Install a door sweep
Along with the curtain above the door, a door sweep is going to be a solution too. much sound gets inside your house through the crack under the door. Finding a nice and rugged door sweep isn’t a problem. You just need to decide which one you like more.
- Weatherstrip the door
As you can see, the door is one big entrance for the outside noise. You may also use weather strips for soundproofing the cracks around the door. Some adhesive-backed high-density foam tape, rubber bulb weather stripping gaskets are going to be enough for sealing the gaps around the perimeter.
- Install some good soundproof curtains
The noise cancelling curtains around the windows are going to block sound from the outdoors. There are many materials to check as some are more effective than others. Having enough width (3 times the width of the windows is ideal) and the length is essential for the efficiency of the noise cancelling curtains. Take your time and find the best solutions for your home.
- Start using a white noise machine
The white noise machine is a really simple solution to drowning out the noise in your home. It’s a fundamental item to have in an apartment when controlling the habits of your neighbours or roommates is rather impossible.
Don’t want to spend any more money? If you already have a fan, you’re in luck. You only need to turn it on at night (even in the winter time) to block the random noise.
- Try a sound spa instead
White noise machine isn’t going to work for everyone. You may consider selecting a natural-sound machine that creates calming nature sounds. Truth be told, you can also find plenty of the natural sounds online. However, an actual machine is going to make the entire process easier and more pleasant. You’re not going to have to work on your phone while trying to get some rest.
- Take a look at the floor- is it soundproofed?
This is one of the most difficult challenges when it comes to improvements in your home. It’s quite often for the floors to under-perform rated IIC assemblies on the cause of the poor workmanship in the field.
Hardwood and tile transport a lot of sound into the structure, benefitting from an efficient sound underlayment. Heavy padding on your carpet presents very high IIC ratings.
Adding a heavy shag carpet to your floor may lead to a Delta-IIC of 10 points or more. This means a sound reduction of 50%. If your flows are sporting tiles, hardwood or linoleum on subfloor concrete, rugs and carpets with sound-absorbing padding are your solutions to try. Cut-pile carpeting can absorb sound better than a loop pile.
In the case of walls and floors, treating the Path and the Source is challenging. Adding a Sound Masking machine is affordable. The Sound Masking works as it adds a background ambient noise to the flat/bedroom, making other noises less obvious. Many phone apps come with sound masking options, but you can find high-end mechanical sound masking units as well.
- Reposition your bed
You can also try to reposition your bed until you get the results you want. If your bed is up against the wall, with a lot of noise on the other side, moving it only 10 inches may be enough for helping you sleep throughout the entire night.
One last note
It’s pretty challenging to solve the noise problem when you live in an apartment. Noise intrusion from interior doors can also get annoying, especially when you’re sharing the flat with roommates.
Apartment doors are these “hollow core” that is typically made with two pieces of laminate. The pieces are rather thin and the core isn’t filled with any fibreglass or blown insulation. As they don’t need thermal insulation, they’re not treated for improving the sound isolation either. Hollow core doors present performance in the STC 20-25 range, whereas the solid-core doors, can get to 35+.
More often than not, interior doors don’t have enough seals and sweeps around the edges. Have you ever tried the “light test”? turn off all the lights on one side of the door, leaving them on from the other side. Once night comes, take a look: are the lights visible on the dark side? If it’s a definite “yes”, you do have important sound leaks around the perimeter of the door. We sure talked about the solutions for this type of problem :).
A Door Sound panel may work too. it adds important mass to your door, sealing around the edges the same way the Door Seal package.
RESOURCES
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/tips-for-dealing-with-street-noise-205662
