Natural Science Forum / Physics / Acoustics / January 2006

On 1/17/06 9:21 AM, in article zI9zf.100828$ME5.5905@twister.nyroc.rr.com,

I get airport noise and freeway noise from time to time. The biggest factor
for me is temperature inversion. During a temperature inversion, sound
emitted from a point near the ground refracts back to the ground. During
typical winter weather, with temperature decreasing with altitude, sound
refracts away from the ground. I would be surprised that such refraction
would be significant over short distances, but who knows what the effect of
micro climates could be.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

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Examine the construction of the windows.  By this I mean the thickness of
the glass, the number of layers of glass, the thickness of air space between
layers, and whether any of the glass is laminated safety glass.  Also
examine how well cracks around the windows are sealed.  A very small crack
makes a big difference.

Hi all.

I'm trying to help my father reduce the road noise that has plagued him for
years. He lives on a pretty major route and the noise from constant traffic
never seems to stop. The house is a good 70 yard from the road and their is
a lot of brush and pine trees, but the noise comes right through into his
bedroom.

Now, I just happened to move into a house that is not even a quarter mile
down the road from him. My house is even closer to the road than his is, but
for some reason I can barely hear the cars! I have less brush and trees in
front. Also, I have a series of 8 windows in a row in the front. I can watch
the cars go by without hardly a sound. We don't understand why I don't have
sound problems and he does.

He just had Zero fill his front walls, mainly for sound . . . .but you can
hardly tell the difference. You can still hear the traffic just fine. It's
like you're sitting right next to the road. It's frustrating trying to
figure out why.

One difference that I am thinking of is that his house is slightly higher in
altitude from the road, while my house is slightly lower in altitude from
the road. Could this be the significant difference? I have noticed that in
my house you can hear the traffic much better from upstairs.

Somebody suggested building a fence near the road to help 'block' the sound
waves. But, that's a lot of work, time, and money without knowing that the
solution will work.

Can any of you sound gurus give me some advice about how best to deal with
this?

Thanks
Robert

As Mr Stewart said, windows could work to stop noise, if they aren't
double, then you must look for some of them.
About a fence, one of the better ways it's to build near to noise
source, but it must be designated in acoustics terms.