Impact noise from neighbours

[Reesespieces92]

hi everyone!

Long time lurker… first time poster.

So we bought a new build house back in 2021 which we have lived in for almost 3 years.

We love the house in general, however we have a few noise issues which we are hoping we can get solved.

So we have a detached house, with a 3 foot path down the side. Next to this is the fence and on the other side of this is the neighbours 3 foot wide path.

However when in our house we can hear next doors kid running up and down the side of the house. Well, when I say hear it is actually more the feel of it. This is the same with their door which is down the side of our house. When they shut it we can feel it vibrate through the house. It is driving me insane! Tbh this isn’t something I expected, and the reason we bought a detached was so we didn’t have to hear the neighbours.

We have had a soundproofing company out to look at the house and give us a quote, but we don’t want to spend thousands of pounds to be disappointed with the results.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can make this any better?
We have been suggested to have a muteclip system on the wall with tecsound and furring channels. As well as filling the ceiling with rock wool. Essentially adding more mass and decoupling the ceiling and walls facing the side of the house. The house is brick construction, with insulation, then thermalite blocks and then dot and dab plasterboard.

We have been told that the dot and dab and hollow voids/ ceiling are amplifying the impact noise. Does anyone have any insight into if we can expect decent improvement on the noise issue.

I apologise for the long post. We are really struggling to decide what is best to do.

Thank you

 

[Reesespieces92]

That’s very useful isn’t it

 

[Reesespieces92]

I appreciate what you are saying. Am just looking for some possible guidance from people that may have dealt with this sort of thing

 

[Reesespieces92]

Their child will eventually grow up and stop running around, you could wait it out or buy the child a tablet leave it outside as a mystery package.

Would it be cheaper and easier to have a word with them about the door and see if there is a way to dampen the noise when it's closed.

If you're this sensitive to noise how will you cope with all the potential building work

I’ll be the first to admit I’m more sensitive to the noise than my partner. Doesn’t really bother them as much as me.

I know what you are saying about having a word. However, as they aren’t doing anything unreasonable we would feel awful asking them to try and sort something when they are just going about their lives.

 

[Reesespieces92]

Do they have a letter box ?

Erm yes they do

 

[Reesespieces92]

Excellent.

From years of reading neighbour dispute/ noise issues on here it would appear that the most popular way to resolve said matter is to send a certain message through their letter box.

Thanks. Never really thought about doing that. Will have to think how to best word it

 

[Reesespieces92]

I’m sure a few have said it’s worked.

if you are going to write with it I would wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.

I realised I misread what you said

I appreciate the laugh haha

 

[Reesespieces92]

As i mentioned above, sound can travel / vibrate through paths and walls. Changing path material may help to stop the vibration from reaching your walls...

Would you think that changing our path structure could really help?

 

[Reesespieces92]

How is the sound being transmitted, through the air or through the ground concrete? Presumably the kid is running on a concrete path, and the sound is also getting reflected from their house wall? So I'm guessing it's getting transmitted through the air, over to your wall, and then amplified when going through your wall because it's hollow cavity?

Personally, I don't think you should say anything to your neighbours, because the kid is not doing anything unreasonable.

How loud is the noise when in your house? Is it louder than someone whispering or talking? Are you being super sensitive??

Would a cheap solution not be a pair of noise cancelling headphones?

Completely agree about them not doing anything unreasonable.

It’s strange because it’s much louder in the house than outside. Outside you can hear it, whereas inside it’s almost a drum like noise.

I have been talking to my partner about it, and whilst they hear it, it doesn’t bother them anywhere near as much as it bothers me.

As for the headphones. I already have some, but I can’t live in them all the time haha

 

[Reesespieces92]

What type of fence do you have between the properties?

Your choices are improving the sound deadening of the fence, or of the internal wall. The latter is likely to be more effective. You can add a layer of sound insulating material onto an internal wall, but you lose some space.

The fence is just a standard one with vertical upright slats.

The interior solution does sound good. By the sounds of it we will lose 7cm width to the room, which doesn’t bother me.

I’m just concerned whether we would notice an improvement.

 

[Reesespieces92]

Yes I think you would. Sound proofing materials are effective. I guess it would be possible to do it temporarily, then you can remove it once the kid has grown up! Might be a problem if you have a window in the affected room though, you'd have to have double or triple glazing on that.

Thanks for your input. Really appreciate it.

We considered secondary glazing, but we would need to treat the room first as the window reveal would be reduced due to the soundproofing materials.

We have been looking a lot at Ikoustic products and they seem to have very good reviews.

 

[Reesespieces92]

I reckon changing the path might be the better first step, less intrusive as well, you say you'll lose 7cm but you'll lose it on each wall and you'll also need to get the floor and ceiling done, that's quite a lot of work. Not to mention the cost, it's not cheap.

i think this is the problem. There’s lots to consider.
Our gate is attached to the side of the same wall. This can be felt too if it shuts or is windy, so did think decoupling this from the wall may help a little.

We have been quoted for the ceiling and the 2 direct walls with window area. Comes out at around £7k. This is with iKoustic products and installation from professionals (Don’t trust ourselves to do it haha)

It’s expensive, but then I have to weigh up the cost of moving to another detached house is probably 100k more in our area.

Our biggest fear is we pay this much money and then it hasn’t helped at all. Guess it’s hard to imagine it…

 

[Reesespieces92]

Sound apparently travels like water, so what about the floor? Or the side walls?

Well one of the walls treated would be the side wall. The other wall is not an issue according to the soundproofing consultant.

He did mention that we could always do acoustic underlay after rather than spending loads in one go. Think it would be better to do it in stages like that.

As I said, outside the noise is what you expect. Can just hear it. It seems like our hollow walls with the dot and dab and the hollow ceiling are the main culprits. They amplify it a bit like a drum.

 

[Reesespieces92]

Fingers crossed for you. I'm at the debating stage also, unfortunately the sound comes from all over so I'll have to do all walls, floor and ceiling, as I think if you're doing it then might as well go all in.

I hope you manage to get it sorted

We originally thought to just do the 2 main direct noise path walls, however we don’t want to have twice the inconvenience of having the room ripped apart again for the ceiling later.

What doesn’t help in our case is that the windows themselves are also awful. We can hear word for word conversations outside even with them closed.

 

[Reesespieces92]

Yeah, same here regarding windows, although I can deal with the external sounds relatively well.

I’ll admit i don’t deal with noise that well. Which is what makes it more tricky, as my other half isn’t bothered at all by the noise. Would be much easier to decide if we both were on the same page lol

 

[Reesespieces92]

Window/plantation shutters?

Might have to be secondary glazing.

We can tell the trickle vents really don’t help as it’s just a hole in the frame

 

[Reesespieces92]

I think this is why I’m trying to rationally think about the whole thing.

A bit disappointed that we bought detached yet still hear quite a lot of noise. Didn’t expect silence, however this is way above what I was expecting.

We have seen people block their trickle vents and say it helps a lot. Bit reluctant to do that because of moisture issues.

 

[Reesespieces92]

If the source is vibration/impact sound then won't this make it worse?

My thoughts exactly.
Just been down the side of the house to make sure I’m not going crazy. So can 100% confirm that me stamping my feet sounds way worse in the house than it does outside. Strongly suggests that the house material is amplifying the noise.

 

[Reesespieces92]

Is it impact noise or airborne as they both have different soundproofing requirements?

Impact noise usually requires soundproofing decoupling to break the bridge of the noise/vibrations through the walls where as airborne can be just soundproofing attatched to the walls. Did the soundproof company mention any of that?

Yes they did. To be fair they have been extremely helpful. Their system is basically going to be furring channels with mute clips that decouple the structure. Then acoustic plasterboard with MLV and more dense material. The ceiling will be similar but with the joist filled with Rockwool as well.

 

[Reesespieces92]

Just be mindful when a company puts acoustic or soundproofing in front of their product/service you're going to pay a premium for buzzwords.

Skimmed the thread but if you're feeling kids running then the best option is physical decoupling...perhaps there's something you can do along your fence like dig it out and replace it different material that won't transfer the impact noise.

Airborne noise is treated in other ways and will always find it's way through the weakest point (like trickle vents). To treat airborne you need airtightness and mass. The room is only as soundproof as the weakest link so no point spending money on sound proofing a floor if the windows have a low STC value.

Thanks Joe

Don’t get me wrong, we are definitely going into this cautiously.

The side of the house is an interesting one. As wouldn’t we have to dig essentially a really deep trench for it to be effective?

We do keep thinking could we do the soundproofing installation ourselves. However, I’d be too worried about installing it incorrectly.

Our windows are definitely an issue too, but less concerned about that as it’s nothing secondary glazing can’t fix.