ᐅ Noise in New Residential Buildings (Housing Areas)

Hello everyone,

In 2024, we had a house built using 36.5cm (14 inch) Poroton bricks, with plaster applied both outside and inside. The windows are triple-glazed uPVC from Kömmerling. The panes apparently aren’t the best; according to the supplier, they offer 30-32dB sound insulation. However, in the bedroom we upgraded to 46dB panes already, but unfortunately without significant improvement.

The windows are equipped with external blinds (raffstores) that are installed in cassette boxes directly mounted on the windows. These boxes are so thick that they are flush with the brick facade and were plastered both inside and outside. According to the datasheet, the boxes can provide up to 46dB sound insulation (tested using “pink noise”). No specific sound insulation class was agreed upon in the building contract.

When I hold a sound level meter to the open window, I measure about 38dB of outside noise. With the window closed, this drops to about 25dB (which is roughly the threshold at which traffic noise from the nearby federal road becomes noticeable).

Some rooms have corner windows that are insulated on the corners with polystyrene blocks. Since we also hear the noise—just slightly quieter—with normal windows, I wouldn’t identify those corners as the only weak points.

Unfortunately, we hear almost all noises from outside: passing cars (it’s a dead-end street with a 30 km/h (19 mph) speed limit), people talking in front of the house, birdsong, the neighbor’s front door across the street... We are about 600 meters (0.37 miles) from a federal road where the background noise is clearly audible depending on wind direction.

We have 23 window units and in some rooms there are four windows with a total area of about 1.5 square meters (16 square feet). This makes it very stressful and frustrating because we really can’t escape the noise.

We are already in talks with the construction company, and an expert will be called in soon. Now I need some input for my arguments and would like to collect some comparisons:

Do you hear such outside noises as well? What level of outdoor noise do you consider “normal” and what is definitely excessive?

A few photos of the shell construction attached.

AndBruNRW schrieb:

With closed windows, around 25 dB.

That is a bit louder than a pin dropping. About as quiet as the rustling of leaves. However, this is not noise, but the normal sound that passes through the window.

However, it is the sound of a car engine that I hear through the closed windows. I only wanted to illustrate with the 25 dB the noise reduction between open and closed windows, which is about 13 dB. Now apply that to 45 dB of outdoor noise. That would result in 32 dB indoors.
And besides, others in their houses don’t hear this. So it doesn’t seem to be that "normal."

Actually, everything looks quite solid and decent.
I believe you can’t really judge the interior acoustics yet from your current closed shell. There are still doors, interior and exterior plaster, furnishings, and so on missing. And as it seems, there are also ventilation gaps between one of the windows and the wall in the picture...

@Gerddieter, they have been living in the house for a year now.

AndBruNRW schrieb:

Now I need some input for my argumentation, please

Honestly, I don’t have that.

AndBruNRW schrieb:

And besides, others don’t hear that in their houses.

Noise and hearing are quite subjective. Ask my husband what he hears 😉 Seriously though: some people can tune out and hear only what they’re supposed to. Others get restless or even irritated if they focus on bird chirping. I notice the garbage collection truck 300 meters (yards) away before it arrives here, and so on. I hear our ventilation system, but not visitors, and it doesn’t bother me at all, so I don’t focus on it. Instead, just last Saturday I heard our neighbor running the vacuum cleaner outside all day. I was the one mentioning the noise, not my husband.

AndBruNRW schrieb:

Do you also hear such outdoor noises? What kind of outdoor noise is "normal," and what definitely isn’t?

I really can’t give you any decibel numbers. It’s also an 11-year-old house with fairly good double glazing and Poroton blocks. Of course, I hear what’s happening on the street outside our house. Simple footsteps, no, but the DHL electric car, for example. We don’t hear the nearby freight train because our living spaces are on the other side of the house, but our neighbors, who all sleep facing north, do hear the freight train. So if you talk about noise, it might be normal ambient sounds that you would usually hear inside a house, and either you’re expecting something different or you are just now paying a lot of attention to the noise.

AndBruNRW schrieb:

that the dB reduction between open and closed is about 13 dB.

That corresponds to a reduction of around 80%. Quite good for this range.
Only a professional assessment will help you here, although I think you might be extremely sensitive (your ears). It will be difficult to improve this further.