House on an A road
Discussion
We have found a house that ticks most of our boxes but is on an A road. It’s busy enough for a pretty much constant drone of background noise. The house is approx 30-40 metres from the road. The neighbours have said the road is much quieter in the evening and outside of school runs / commuting hours.
You can obviously hear the road in the front/back garden, but also inside the house (albeit much reduced). Windows look to be standard upvc, so we are wondering how effective acoustic glazing or replacement windows would be.
I’m interested to hear people’s experiences. Does anybody live near an A road very happily? What have you done to reduce the noise?
You can obviously hear the road in the front/back garden, but also inside the house (albeit much reduced). Windows look to be standard upvc, so we are wondering how effective acoustic glazing or replacement windows would be.
I’m interested to hear people’s experiences. Does anybody live near an A road very happily? What have you done to reduce the noise?
t, petrols more in vogue and sos electric.Thanks for all the replies so far.
Some more info...
It’s a single carriageway A road connecting two rural villages. Speed limit is 40 mph. The house is just outside the village where it goes to a 30 mph.
As somebody already stated, the house is priced within our affordability because of its location. It would be 20-30% more if down a single track country lane.
Directly opposite the house is a bridleway/foot path leading to pretty much endless country walks. Countryside aspect from all windows and in a plot of 0.5 acres. Village cricket pitch next door. Nice spacious driveway with potential to build my dream 3 bay garage. There are many positives, but obviously the busy road is a major turnoff.
I’m more interested to hear experiences from folks who have lived near a busy road to get a better sense of whether the noise gets to a point where it becomes unbearable or more like living near a flight path where you seem to not notice it after a few weeks.
Some more info...
It’s a single carriageway A road connecting two rural villages. Speed limit is 40 mph. The house is just outside the village where it goes to a 30 mph.
As somebody already stated, the house is priced within our affordability because of its location. It would be 20-30% more if down a single track country lane.
Directly opposite the house is a bridleway/foot path leading to pretty much endless country walks. Countryside aspect from all windows and in a plot of 0.5 acres. Village cricket pitch next door. Nice spacious driveway with potential to build my dream 3 bay garage. There are many positives, but obviously the busy road is a major turnoff.
I’m more interested to hear experiences from folks who have lived near a busy road to get a better sense of whether the noise gets to a point where it becomes unbearable or more like living near a flight path where you seem to not notice it after a few weeks.
I live in a lovely village that used to have the A66 run right through it. Everyone knew it was a lovely village, but nobody would buy because of the (at the time, single carriageway) A road. They bypassed it about 20 years ago. My house is at most 5m from the old A road, which is now just a quiet village road. I’d always had my eye on living there one day, but would never have contemplated it until the bypass.
I depends what you mean by busy.
We have a house on an rural A road, in mid Wales, same as your description, country side all round, right on the start/end of a 30/NSL.
It gets busy twice a day, 45 mins in the morning and 45 mins in the evening, that's it. The front of the house is about 15m from the road, the only time I notice the road noise is if it's raining, particularly in the morning.
The rest of the time, particularly in the evening, it's very, very quiet and the only things you can hear are wildlife.
The only stand out road noises are the sirens on ambulances, (we live on the main route to the nearest hospital, 30+ miles away).
To be fair we are not there all year round and miss most of the peak holiday times, however the times we have been there during those times I can't say I noticed anything out of the ordinary.
As I said, it depends how you define busy, I doubt, rural, mid Wales compares to a, god forsaken, hell hole in the SE of England.
We have a house on an rural A road, in mid Wales, same as your description, country side all round, right on the start/end of a 30/NSL.
It gets busy twice a day, 45 mins in the morning and 45 mins in the evening, that's it. The front of the house is about 15m from the road, the only time I notice the road noise is if it's raining, particularly in the morning.
The rest of the time, particularly in the evening, it's very, very quiet and the only things you can hear are wildlife.
The only stand out road noises are the sirens on ambulances, (we live on the main route to the nearest hospital, 30+ miles away).
To be fair we are not there all year round and miss most of the peak holiday times, however the times we have been there during those times I can't say I noticed anything out of the ordinary.
As I said, it depends how you define busy, I doubt, rural, mid Wales compares to a, god forsaken, hell hole in the SE of England.
chappj said:
I’m more interested to hear experiences from folks who have lived near a busy road to get a better sense of whether the noise gets to a point where it becomes unbearable or more like living near a flight path where you seem to not notice it after a few weeks.
As someone who lives and works around aircraft perhaps I can shed some light. Important first to distinguish between sound and noise. Sound is the force of what you hear, the power, the volume. Noise is how you interpret it i.e. its the one person's Maria Callas is another persons strangling a cat type scenario. If you interpret the sound of the traffic at the house as noise and not just the sound it is then you may have to consider if you're willing to change your view. The reason why people aren't too bothered about aircraft is the sound slowly comes into awareness, holds for a moment and then passes. Humans are good at adapting their hearing to accommodate this. What we are useless at is preparing for sudden onset sounds which you may find more in the country at your new home. We live in the country and directly under a flight path and it doesn't bother us at all. Now Waitrose on a Saturday morning...... Edited by Julia121 on Saturday 18th January 23:07
Edited by Julia121 on Saturday 18th January 23:08
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