How much noise is normal in semi-Ds?

I grew up in the country and then moved to the US for 10 years, so I hadn't really lived in a semi d till returning last year (well, I did in college but I'm sure we made a lot more noise than the neighbours then). So, I was wondering what's 'typical'?

We live in a rented house in Maynooth. Our neighbour is a single man and he's really very quiet. So, it's not that he's making loads of noise or anything. But we hear doors closing and can hear him going to the toilet! When we're in bed, we can hear the radio from next door. We hear the chairs being pulled across his tiles. Is that normal? I can't imagine how much noise he must get from us, since we've a 4 year old who's not the quietest at times.

We've just gone sale agreed on a house and I'm just wondering if we'll get the same sort of noise there.

Thanks!

Yes, unfortunately I think it is "normal". Our neighbour is also a single guy. We hear doors closing, vacuuming, his alarm clock in the morning, and of course his stereo when he cranks up the volume on it.
You'd expect to hear the music when he turns it up, but you would think that all the other things would not be audible at all, but they are!

You sound like a very reasonable well balanced person, as does your neighbour. He doesn't seem to be doing anything that would be considered over the top noise nuisance wise yet because of poor building insulation you are both probably getting on each other's nerves.

I can never understand why Planning Permission regulatioins never seem to specify certain levels of sound insulation between party walls? Does anyone know if such standards exist or if they are ever monitored in new builds?

I think new houses are far worse. The last place I lived in was brand new and every noise was clearly audible, from doors closing to showers going on and tables and chairs being pulled out in the morning. There was really no greater sound insulation between the houses than there was within the houses themselves.
I don't think you should be able to hear the day-to-day noises of people moving around their house, but that seems to be the standard of new build now. The neighbour's kid also pratcised playing the bass guitar very badly for hours and hours every day, but that's another story.
I now live in a 60-year old house and the only sound is when next door's TV is put up really loud, which is fair enough every now and again.

It all depends on what type of semi-d it is and what standard it was built to.

I live in a 1949 semi-d which has 9inch solids in the partition wall and we hear very very little from the neighbours.

I'm guessing these are newish houses both the posters above are talking about - most builders these days are putting in only the bare minimum sound insulation to meet the regulations, and in some cases they are not even meeting the regs.

Do a search here and you'll find plenty of info aswell as a case where someone bought a new place which had bad sound insulation so they got a test done (cost them €500) which proved the builder had not met the regs and so the builder will have to pay to improve to meet the regs.

Hi,

This is probably the main previous post that OhPinchy is referring to.

There are others here also.

The level of noise transmission varies greatly between estates. I live in a semi , first one always lived detached before. Lukily we had rented briefly in Rockfield maynooth and experienced how bad it can be - could hear the neighbours chatting over breakfast, couldn't hear what they were saying but if they raised their voices it was clear enough. So when we came to buy a semi we investigated very carefully; asked people already living in the estates etc. I wouldn't touch a new-build semi, too much of a risk. We have a family with 2 young kids next door and rarely hear them, certainly never hear voices. We have three not so young kids with a lot of music and the neighbours swear they can't hear, I hope they're not just being nice but given that we never hear them the insulation must be half decent. Our house was built just at the very beginning of the boom, maybe the builders tried harder before they were able to make such easy money

Bought brand new 3 bed semi D 3 years ago & have not had any problems with noise - and there is a 5 year old boy next door .
Only noise I ever hear is the front door closing.
It really seems to depend on the house..........
& I suppose the living areas are on opposite sides of the house so that helps

We live in a 3 year old semi and the only noise we hear from next door is when their little one is having a tantrum and stomping on their wooden floors...which doesn't happen very often.

My parents live in a 30 year old semi and at night you can hear the neighbours flush their toilet...even though the bathroom is on the outside wall. When we were younger you could hear the kids running up and down the stairs.

Rented for a while in a house about 15 years old and we could hear the neighbours pulling out the plugs and opening & closing the double doors between the living room and kitchen....

so its really to do with the quality of the house itself rather than the age of it.

Kiddo said:

so its really to do with the quality of the house itself rather than the age of it.

Click to expand...

I think you're spot on there Kiddo, but the main theme from previous complaints I've heard would seem to be that new houses are more likely to be of a lower quality in terms of sound insulation than new builds.

last year we moved into a timber frame semi-d. The neighbours have three kids under five and listen to the TV Very Loudly and we have never heard a sound and vice versa. Apparently timber framed houses have higher insulation on party walls and therefore are better insulated against airborne sound. So it aint neccesarily so that newer houses aren't as well insulated against sound as older ones!!