People who live 1/2 mile or less from 429 - noise? (apartment, buying a house)

[tonyp22]

I’m looking at a house that is 1/3 of a mile straight line distance from an elevated portion of 429. My friend did some initial checking of the house (I currently live out of State), and at the time listened carefully for road noise coming into the neighborhood from 429. At the time he said there was none. I went this past weekend. It was windy, with the wind coming in roughly from the Northwest, from 429 toward the property of interest. This time, the road noise was rather plain to hear. For folks who live in this sort of straight line distance to any of the local elevated major highways - how do you feel about it? The section of 429 in this case had no sound walls installed, so I’m guessing for a road this old the DOT probably won’t be doing something like this anytime soon.

[bmw335xi]

I don't think being 1/3 mile from 429 will hurt resale-wise. Most of the time you will be in the house and when you are enjoying the backyard, you won't be trying to listen carefully for car noise.

[tonyp22]

Originally Posted by bmw335xi

I don't think being 1/3 mile from 429 will hurt resale-wise. Most of the time you will be in the house and when you are enjoying the backyard, you won't be trying to listen carefully for car noise.

Yes, I was kind of worried about this, too. I also wasn't sure if it'd be something you eventually ignored because you got used to it. I actually skipped on buying a house up here about 25 years ago because it was too close to the interstate. My SO came up with some interesting ideas for how to handle this - wind chimes (but they can get annoying), or one of those Japanese falling water thingies on the lanai. Fortunately the lanai was built with water access if one wanted to add a hot tub or something like that.

[Chas863]

Originally Posted by tonyp22

I’m looking at a house that is 1/3 of a mile straight line distance from an elevated portion of 429. My friend did some initial checking of the house (I currently live out of State), and at the time listened carefully for road noise coming into the neighborhood from 429. At the time he said there was none. I went this past weekend. It was windy, with the wind coming in roughly from the Northwest, from 429 toward the property of interest. This time, the road noise was rather plain to hear. For folks who live in this sort of straight line distance to any of the local elevated major highways - how do you feel about it? The section of 429 in this case had no sound walls installed, so I’m guessing for a road this old the DOT probably won’t be doing something like this anytime soon.

Years ago when I was shopping for a house, I had a chance to compare two different houses which sat close to highways. Each house was approximately 250-300 feet from the highway, but one of the houses was below the highway while the other house was above the highway.

The house that was above (higher in elevation than) the highway was noisier by quite a large margin. The house that sat below the highway was much quieter even though this was a 4 lane interstate highway while the other house was close to a 2 lane secondary road. My conclusion from this was that highway noise travels up off the hard surface of the highway much more than it travels down. I suppose the reason for this is that in order for the noise to travel down, it would have to bounce off something above the highway, but there was nothing above the highway but open sky.

[tonyp22]

Interesting. I otherwise like this house very much. It ticks off most of the boxes on my list. I'm torn on passing up such a nice home because of this road proximity thing. OTOH I've been looking at houses for almost a year and so far haven't found something that ticks all the boxes. Compromise seems likely.

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by tonyp22

Interesting. I otherwise like this house very much. It ticks off most of the boxes on my list. I'm torn on passing up such a nice home because of this road proximity thing. OTOH I've been looking at houses for almost a year and so far haven't found something that ticks all the boxes. Compromise seems likely.

I honestly don't think 1/3 mile from a highway is a big deal. If it were 100 feet, then yes, but 1/3 of a mile is pretty far away. Since you like it a lot, go for it

[heatlamp]

I just sold the family house in MA that I grew up in. It has a 4 lane turnpike about 100 feet away from the back yard, at the top of a 20 ft high hill. The turnpike was busy during commuting hours and on weekends. Living there you do just stop hearing it because it is a constant hum, like white noise. However, many potential buyers were put off by it. Ended up getting bought by a young couple moving from a city apartment who were used to background noise already.

[Chas863]

I haven't done any great studying of acoustics, but it's pretty evident that sound waves bounce off hard surfaces. If you're in a room, sounds will bounce off ceilings, walls, floors and any other hard surfaces. If you've ever been outside a few hundred feet away from a large warehouse type building, you may notice that if you make a loud noise, the noise will bounce back at you in the form of an echo.

This seems to lend credence to the experience I mentioned above about one house above the highway being much noisier than another house below the highway even though both were about the same distance from the highway.

Thus, sound waves seem to be directional. Again, this can be easily proven by going to a concert or live performance by a band. If you're in front of the speakers, the sound can be painful to your eardrums, but if you are behind the speakers, the sound level is quite tolerable even though you may actually be closer to the speakers.

[OTownKnight]

Regarding the sound walls/barriers, they can certainly still go up in the future. They are currently working on expanding Hwy 417 between Colonial & Aloma and they have put in brand new sound walls that stretch for a few miles on each side. Always the possibility that they could do this in the future with 429 once the traffic counts warrant installing sound barriers.

You need to ask yourself how sensitive you will be to outside noise. If you feel that it is something you will constantly focus in on that will bother you, then pass on the house. If not and the pros outweigh this con, then don't let it stop you from buying the house. As bmw said, if it was 1,000 feet or less than that would probably be overkill, but 1/3rd of a mile isn't the end of the world. Chances are you won't be able to hear any of the road noise at night when traffic dies down, plus you have windows helping insulate the outside noise.

[tonyp22]

Originally Posted by OTownKnight

Regarding the sound walls/barriers, they can certainly still go up in the future. They are currently working on expanding Hwy 417 between Colonial & Aloma and they have put in brand new sound walls that stretch for a few miles on each side. Always the possibility that they could do this in the future with 429 once the traffic counts warrant installing sound barriers.

Thanks. I wonder if there's any published information that provides the specifications for what traffic density would warrant putting up sound walls?

Originally Posted by OTownKnight

You need to ask yourself how sensitive you will be to outside noise. If you feel that it is something you will constantly focus in on that will bother you, then pass on the house. If not and the pros outweigh this con, then don't let it stop you from buying the house. As bmw said, if it was 1,000 feet or less than that would probably be overkill, but 1/3rd of a mile isn't the end of the world. Chances are you won't be able to hear any of the road noise at night when traffic dies down, plus you have windows helping insulate the outside noise.

Yes, fair enough. My concern would be more along the lines of whether it would be intrusive to me during the day, when I'm out on the lanai enjoying a cup of retired life coffee.