Noisy apartment solutions
April 4, 2018 5:05 PM   Subscribe

My apartment faces a commercial street with a busy bar on one corner. The windows may as well not be there in terms of sound insulation. Is there anything I can buy that might help to mitigate street noise?

Details:
The bar is busy most nights, unfortunately, so I'm guaranteed to hear folks outside talking loudly and drunkenly most nights until 1. Weekends until 4 at least. I've accepted the fact that the bar and it's patrons are within their rights to be there, and that complaining is unlikely to do much to a bar that's been there for years.

Apart from that, there's commercial trash pick up most night of the week, plus I'm pretty close to a stop light, so constant hydraulic brakes.

I find that once I'm asleep I can sleep through most noise or get back to sleep easily if woken. The reaaaaaally hard part is getting asleep unless I'm dead tired.

I have a speaker playing white noise most nights, but this doesn't do too much. I was wondering if a more specific machine might do better at noise canceling.

The noisiest window is also the fire escape, so I'd be reluctant to try insulating it without having that be easy to remove.

I've considered ear plugs, but dislike having stuff in my ears.

Any other solutions that you've used to deal with a noisey apartment?
posted by codacorolla to Home & Garden (18 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Instead of a speaker, I'd try https://www.sleepphones.com/ combined with a white noise app. I love mine so much. I use it with the Calm app.
posted by radioamy at 5:10 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


Heavy curtains will help a bit. Also, what kind of windows do you have? I'm assuming you rent and that upgrading them isn't an option, but if you own then upgrading old single-pane windows to modern double-pane ones is well worth it in itself and will also cut down on noise considerably. If you're stuck with single pane, are do they fit tightly or is there a lot of play in them? If either the frames or the panes have gotten a bit loose over time, tightening them up with some felt and glazier's putty will be worthwhile.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:36 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


Stupidly thick, heavy curtains (think of the padding blankets used by movers, or heavy blackout curtains) held up by easy-to-install Ikea curtain rods might be what you're looking for. They'll at least knock down some of the higher-frequency noise.

For the curtains themselves, you could to a bulk fabric store and ask them what the heaviest blackout curtain material they have is, and get it cut to size for the windows in question. You could even double up on thickness. If it's just a thing you just put up at night, they don't even need to be made into curtains - just the right size of fabric you can clip to the rods at night.

Or you can get them made into proper curtains.

Again, this isn't a total solution, but it will definitely mitigate a surprising amount of noise.

Also, squares of polyurethane foam you can lean up against the windows will damp a fair bit of sound (easily removed in an emergency since they're light and just leaning there, but polyurethane foam is also pretty flammable, so...)
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:37 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


We have CitiQuiet/CityProof windows in our bedroom -- wonderful and seal out most noise, including car alarms and ambulance sirens.
posted by vacuumsealed at 5:53 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]


Our house has foot-thick walls and we can't hear the busy street at all. I would imagine that wall-to-wall bookshelves would effectively create a book-thick wall.
posted by aniola at 6:38 PM on April 4, 2018


I've used a fan and earplugs in the past, sometimes with headphones over the earplugs.

Sorry ... I know it sucks.
posted by bunderful at 7:06 PM on April 4, 2018


Because you said in your ears:
I can't do foam earplugs, but the silicone ones block nearly as much noise and stick to the external part of your ear. If you mold them to your ear well once and are careful removing / replacing, a single pair can last weeks. Audiologists can also make custom earplugs that won't press on your ear canals (for $$$).
posted by momus_window at 7:59 PM on April 4, 2018


If you can add or replace the window's weatherstripping, do that. I just did a pretty half-assed job on my bedroom window and it made a huge difference even before I changed the window coverings. It's cheap enough that it's reasonable in a rental, and shouldn't be a problem deposit-wise even if your landlord doesn't like what you've done (all they'd have to do is yank it off.) I went with the thick foam kind with adhesive already attached.
posted by asperity at 8:10 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]


This is very similar to my situation. I have worn earplugs every night for many years now -- they are effective, and you do get used to them. I'll be interested to see other solutions here.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:21 PM on April 4, 2018


Seconding CitiQuiet double windows, the 2nd floor apartment below us has them on windows right over the avenue and it’s marvelously quiet in there.
posted by nicwolff at 8:58 PM on April 4, 2018


I came to suggest a more elaborate version of what radioamy said.

1/ A fan or white noise machine in the room

2/ Sleepphones (I bought knock-offs on Ebay. These are great; it's just very important you not buy fleece ones as they stretch out.)

3/ The Calm app - the bedtime stories really are designed to put you to sleep and work so well.

4/ The calm app has it's own audio controls, so I can also run Relaxio (which is free) underneath as quiet background noise. I run Relaxio all night so that when Calm finishes, I am still muffling outside noise.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:59 PM on April 4, 2018


We have one of these, and when we run it we can appreciate a significant decrease in the sounds of our elderly relative in the next room:

- getting stoned while he watches reruns of That ‘70s Show
- getting stoned and playing guitar along with EVERY ALBUM HE OWNS
- getting stoned and talking back to the news
- getting stoned and talking back to the sports
- getting stoned and talking to his cat

And also the neighbours:

-making painful-poop noises in response to sports/video games
-getting stoned and whooping about (current events?) at 2am

This sample may not be representative, YMMV, etc. The only downside is it makes the room
chilly by moving air around.
posted by armeowda at 10:10 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]


If the walls are masonry, there are two things that can/must be done: Seal the sides of the window frames so there is no gap to allow noise to penetrate. Needs to be an acoustic sealer, not a flimsy piece of foam - probably need the architraves removed to do it properly. Then replace the window panes with specialist acoustic glass - usually a laminated pane, with thicker than usual glass panes and a special (thick?) plastic laminate. Double glazing will also help, but at least one pane needs to be acoustic. All other mods to the windows are a waste of time and money. I would be very surprised if heavy curtains did much, that would be a last resort for me.

If the walls are not masonry, some of the noise cancelling may help, but I would be moving. If you are renting, these improvements will make the place more attractive for tenants, and so the landlord should come to the party. If you plan on staying long term, some cost sharing/rent rebate deal could be done, if you were up for financing the alterations.
posted by GeeEmm at 12:20 AM on April 5, 2018


In a similar previous thread, someone recommended theatre curtains, the heavier the better.
posted by clawsoon at 3:12 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


However, the discussion following this article suggests that curtains won't be of much use as
unfortunately sound absorbing materials will not be effective barriers against noise intrusion. In acoustical engineering terminology, Sound Absorption (NRC Rating or Absorption Coefficient) is the ability of a material to prevent sound reflections, echoes and/or reverberation within a room. Sound Transmission Loss (STC rating or TL) is the ability of a material to act as a barrier to sounds that penetrate into the room from an adjacent space. You will need to increase the STC rating of the partition between your neighbors apartment and yours. This is not a simple task and usually involves a construction project!
posted by clawsoon at 3:17 AM on April 5, 2018


...however again, further down in the same discussion the author does mention that you can look for curtains with a high STC (Sound Transmission Class/Sound Transmission Loss) rating. Look for sound barrier curtains, not sound absorption curtains. The author suggests looking for a sound barrier curtain with an STC rating of 50, though so far I've only been able to find industrial curtains with ratings of 33 and 38 and theatre curtains with ratings up to 20. The industrial curtains are heavy (up to 150 lbs for an 8'x8' piece), expensive, and require heavy-duty mounting.

The reason that they're heavy is explained in this article, which outlines the principles of soundproofing (mass, damping, decoupling, absorption). Following further links from that page, it seems that your best bet might be to cover your windows with drywall.
posted by clawsoon at 3:43 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also try other "noises", white noise isn't always the best at drowning out specific sounds. We had to go through a bunch of sounds before I found one that doesn't so much drown out my husbands snoring as it makes my brain blend it into the background. You may also need it much louder than you think you do, the idea is it makes it easier for your brain to tune out the other noises as non threatening so you need to be able to hear it over the noise, though not to actually drown it out as to mask it.

This machine isn't cheap, and it took a few tries to find the right pitch, sound & volume combo but it's been a sleep saver. We tried the phone app/speaker combo but this just had more flexibility for what we needed. If nothing else Amazon does returns if it doesn't work out for you.

Also look for gaps & seal them with expanding foam. Sound loves to come in through gaps around windows etc. I had a friend would put sheets of insulating foam board, like the sort you insulate your house with in his windows each night to try to muffle street noise. It wasn't attractive but it worked for him. It also cut down on pretty much all light leaking in which i think helped him sleep too.
posted by wwax at 6:41 AM on April 5, 2018


Attend your local community council meetings. More than likely your neighbors have the same issue as you and perhaps something can be worked out with the bar.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:31 AM on April 5, 2018


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