Transfer of sound - flats vs houses

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

DiscoDave

Associate
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Posts
1,856
Location
Cambridge
Hi Everyone,

I currently live in a flat. Due to a new job, money, and a desire for more than one bedroom I now have it on the market and looking to buy a 2/3 bed house.

One of the minor annoyances I've had is hearing my neighbors below me (those next to me I never hear).

To those who have lived in both flats and houses, do houses generally offer better sound insulation against neighbors?

Cheers,
 
Mat said:
You're likely to have fewer adjoining neighbours, obviously, but crank up some bass and that sucker will travel through walls like they aren't there.

Don't pray for insulation, pray for quiet neighbours! I've suffered in terraced and semi detached alike.
Click to expand...

Well, there's only two floors in my block of flats and I occupy a corner flat. So I have only two neighbors - below and next to me :).

I'm tempted to stick with looking at semi detached houses to reduce the risk of noisey neighbors..
 
Raymond Lin said:
It depends on the construction of the house. I think mine is a plasterboard/100mm blockwork/gap/100mm blockwork/plaster board. To that extent, I certainly don't hear them walking up and down the stairs, vacuuming, watching TV, music or day to day talking. The only sound I hear is if they do DIY and start drilling or knocking nails into the wall.

However, they can hear my sub…at a volume which I considered to be general listening level, so they don't insulate well against low frequencies.
Click to expand...

Now, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to DIY and properties. Are they also known as studded walls? Do they differ than say, traditional brick walls? Ie i've seen some staggered terrace which looks like two layers of brick separating the houses. Is that better for noise softening?

Scurra said:
Having lived in both a flats (a block of four 2 tall, 2 wide) and a variety of houses (currently mid terrace) I can confirm that sound transfer is much less noticable in the houses.

When I lived in the flat I could hear my upstairs neighbours up to all manner of things nearly all the time.

However in my terrace house I can barely hear anything going on next door, the only exception being a dog barking and even that's very faint.
Click to expand...

Do you know what kind of walls you have? Fully insulated/brick/studded etc?
 
Thanks for the informative posts chaps, most appreciated.

I guess it's down to a bit of pot lucky.

I'm hoping to go with a end terrace/semi detached where the joining houses living rooms aren't sharing the same wall. We'll see.

I'm avoiding new builds like the plague. Went round one recently, the walls sounded so hollow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom