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Reducing road noise in the garden

RogerS

RogerS

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And off to pastures new
Has anyone used acoustic fencing to do this ? It seems lower cost than building a brick wall although research suggests single brick wall gives 40db reduction and fencing 28db
 
there is not much you can do to reduce road noise in my opinion, sound finds its way around the fence regardless of what it's made of, but bricks are likely to have more of an impact than wood, I'd be looking at high density concrete bricks which you could paint or put render on it to hide the uglyness of it.
 
Berms seem to work. Berm + hedge on top, possibly even better.

I think you know, Roger, the directionality of sound varies with frequency, which in turn affects the absorption effectiveness of various materials.

The low frequency stuff (say 100Hz downwards) you can't really do much about, since it will ignore physical barriers and diffract over them, but you can 'block' sound with increasing effectiveness as you go higher up. Berms, brick walls, etc. will all work to an extent. A fence will probably work a bit at higher frequencies, but pass most stuff in the mid range (say 150Hz to 1kHz).

I'd be amazed if you can get 40dB from a wall though, unless it's really tall (say 8ft or more), solid, and without gates or other openings.

The other thing is that the value of any barrier probably diminishes with the distance you are away from it. I'd expect it to be more effective close to the road, and less effective on the far side of the property.
 
Wall - lasts donkey's years and permanent added value. Fence - temporary. Maybe worth factoring in.
 
My advice, having had a farm under the Gatwick flight path at Capel in Surrey, is if noise bothers you at all, then don't even consider the property. Especailly so if you are considering spending money on remedial measures. People generally do property viewings with optimism. That can quickly switch to irritation when you have to live with it.
 
A question for those who know about sound waves: would a crinkle-crankle wall be more effective for sound insulation than a straight one?
I suppose the lower frequencies will still pass through, but wonder if reflected waves could help cancel out incoming sound
 
The type or frequency can affect how bothersome a noise is. There is a wagon with a night heater that sometimes rests up about a mile away, I know what it is because I've gone looking for the noise in the early hrs. The low frequency hum drives me crazy.
 
Tris said:
A question for those who know about sound waves: would a crinkle-crankle wall be more effective for sound insulation than a straight one?
I suppose the lower frequencies will still pass through, but wonder if reflected waves could help cancel out incoming sound
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Using reflections for cancellation is sometimes done in acoustics, but it's limited in application: inside closed spaces, and for fairly narrow- band resonances. Google "Helmholtz Resonator" for theory and practical designs.

Roger's problem is much more about just blocking the sound. As you suspected, the longer the wavelength (lower pitch), the more easily it goes round (and through) obstacles. And since he doesn't want to build a heavy box over his house... the technical problem is insoluble.

The BBC's architects famously gave up trying to soundproof London TV studios (notably at TV Centre) after tests showed they couldn’t build roofs massive enough to stop the sound of the 'new' era of passenger jets for Heathrow getting in (in the late 1950s, long before Concorde). They settled for muffling them a bit.
 
Eric the Viking said:
The BBC's architects famously gave up trying to soundproof London TV studios (notably at TV Centre) after tests showed they couldn’t build roofs massive enough to stop the sound of the 'new' era of passenger jets for Heathrow getting in (in the late 1950s, long before Concorde). They settled for muffling them a bit.
Click to expand...
Made me smile. When No 1 offspring was small, we had the studio and although we very rarely recorded acoustic drums, he got obsessed for a while using the drum kit. The thump thump thump of the bass drum would go through everything - and we ended up shifting it to the basement with a thick concrete ceiling over it. You could still hear it though as it is really hard to soundproof access areas. Bribery was the answer.

Tyre rumble from lorries is like this. :(
 
Most important thing to do is informally visit said property through out different times of the day. Rush hour or two, evening and weekends. You don't want to find out the neighbours love to party all hours of the night.:) And yes triple glazed windows do stop a lot of noise.
 
I spent much of my life working on highway projects where ecoustic fencing was widely used to protect close-by housing etc from excessive noise and always believed that the fence had a double purpose which was partly to absorb the noise and secondly to deflect it above the houses in fairly equal proportions.
 
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