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Soundproofing for New York Noise
- schwarz 11y agoAmazing! Anyone knows a good source for acoustics fundamentals?
- jzwinck 11y agoOne of the culprits: > air-conditioning units (which are basically unrestricted openings to the street) Window air conditioning units are virtually unknown in a large part of the warm weather world. We use "split systems," where only a couple thin pipes and some wires connect the outdoors with the indoors. NYC's fascination with inefficient window units is really quite strange. I suppose landlords enjoy not having to pay for installation and maintenance of permanent units.
- wiiittttt 11y agoIt's not necessarily only window units. Many apartments have in-wall units also. It would be cost prohibitive for most to close up a hole in a brick wall to install a split unit.
- _delirium 11y agoI guess this might be an example where leapfrogging technology by being a bit late ends up with better results? One reason split units are popular in southern Europe is precisely because they're cheaper to install than wall units, since you only have to drill a small hole through the wall, not open up a big gap. But I can see that if you already opened up a big gap, because you installed A/C back when the ductless split units weren't widely available, then it'd be more expensive to close it back up again. A/C has only really gotten common in Italy, Greece, and Spain since the '90s or so, so they went straight to the modern split units when retrofitting.
- jzwinck 11y agoThis doesn't explain NYC, where a huge number of apartments use window units. Landlords don't feel compelled to provide A/C, so tenants need to provide their own, but tenants aren't allowed to drill any holes at all, so they're left with window units. Plus, window units are cheap as chips in NYC--under $200. In any case, almost nobody in NYC uses the sort of split system so common everywhere else. Older buildings are left with window units, while new buildings have built-in units, often with the most horrible control panels you can imagine from some dudes in New Jersey.
- bradleyjg 11y agoMy building, from the 80s, has no central air, but through wall cutouts the size of a window unit. However, when I went to buy an air conditioner I found that only one company made a unit the exact right size and the cost 3x more than the BTU equivalent window unit.
- Gravityloss 11y agoHow about using the radiators and district cooling? Distributed hardware is usually not very efficient, especially here with space and noise constraints.
- justinph 11y agoRadiators do not work for cooling. Cooling creates condensation, which will drip on and rot the floor unless you move it out of the building somehow. Cool air also needs to be forced to circulate, whereas hot air will do that on its own.
- gotchange 11y agoI'm from a warm climate part of the developing world and we got split units for a long time and the window ones are not really common due to inconvenience during the install process and despite their relative economic pricing to their competitors.
- VLM 11y agoIn NYC is it a thing to have the owner pay for heat for the whole complex via one giant efficient boiler in the basement, and the individual apartments cool by electricity they're separately billed for? This is not unusual in the midwest. On one hand in my bachelor pad apartment a really bad August was like $40 of electricity for cooling, on the other hand times 40 apartments, I'm sure the owner would prefer "we" pay instead of him.
- ctkrohn 11y agoVery common, to the point of being nearly universal except in relatively recent construction. Many (perhaps most) NYC apartments don't have thermostats. Don't like the heat the landlord has chosen? Open the window or buy a space heater. Want to be cool in the summer? Buy a window air conditioner.
- _delirium 11y agoAny idea how that system got common? NYC used to have mainly heat based on steam radiators, which are perfectly easy to control per unit by just adjusting the radiator valve. Since the 1930s, there are even "automatic valves" that raise/lower the radiator inflow automatically to maintain a set temperature, like a thermostat (this is the invention that Danfoss was built on). That's exactly the system I had when I lived in Copenhagen, and it worked pretty well. But it seems to have been largely replaced in NYC with forced-air heating that has no individual controls? So yes, to "adjust the thermostat" downwards, people literally open their windows in January, blowing heat into the outdoors.
- chmullig 11y agoNo, steam heat is still quite common in NYC. It's just those valves work approximately 0% of the time.
- Spooky23 11y agoNYC landlords are a unique species of scum. If it's doesn't cost them anything, it's good. There's a lot of history that got us here. One of the outcomes/legacies of this stuff is rent regulation, and the standards of operation there extend into unregulated apartments as well.
- tw04 11y agoGiven that a window unit is on the order of hundreds to a thousand dollars (for a REALLY nice unit) and the permanent external/internal systems are on the order of $5-10k, I think the fascination is pretty obvious.
- vitd 11y agoNot to mention that when renting a unit, you don't have the option to put in central air. So you do what you can - stick a unit in a window.
- Cookingboy 11y agoIt's not central air, most Americans don't know what indoor/outdoor system mean. It's something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Ductless-INVERTER-Conditioner-110~120/dp/B00E9I9I4S/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1450644629&sr=8-9&keywords=air+conditioning http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Ductless-INVERTER-Conditioner-...
- Cookingboy 11y agoWhat the hell? An indoor/outdoor system costs less than $1k on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Ductless-INVERTER-Conditioner-110~120/dp/B00E9I9I4S/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1450644629&sr=8-9&keywords=air+conditioning http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Ductless-INVERTER-Conditioner-...
- cylinder 11y agoThese things always have the worst remotes.
- jcrawfordor 11y agoIn an apartment building, installation is going to cost you more than the actual unit. You need to run fairly heavy hoses to the condenser. You also aren't going to put a fleet of little one-ton units on the roof, so you're looking at much larger central condensers or possibly cooling towers for chilled water (which often ends up cheaper for large installations but requires more space).
- compactmani 11y agoI just left a 3 story walk up with central air and I can say the during the summer the large roof mounted AC units (technically split systems as you describe them) drove me absolutely insane. The humming caused by multiple machines running made it almost impossible for me to stay at home and fall asleep. I'm sure there are smart mechanical engineers working on vibration free AC units, but until then I'm looking for a house.
- Gravityloss 11y agoThe propeller was invented 200 years ago. I think the aerodynamics for silent ones have been known for 70 years (laminar flow). The rest is just politics - those who pay for the conditioning system are not the ones who suffer from the noise - and even if they were, they have no competence to differentiate. Maybe if apartments had noise ratings, and they could charge neighboring buildings for the measurable loss of worth from noise. Maybe there are precedents from airfield politics.
- genericacct 11y agoSeconding mandatory noise ratings for buildings and all thermal conditioning machines. In Europe they've invented all sort of energy efficiency ratings to sell wares already, i don't see why it can't be be done for noise.
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoI believe what you describe is partly caused by a beat frequency: the humming of different units is at slightly different frequencies, giving a noise with time-varying perceived amplitude. This is much more disturbing than a constant noise.
- Shivetya 11y agobuilding laws, zoning, and history, all conspire here. Now new energy efficiency regulations may finally push the move to centralized or similar systems. Still the zoning restrictions tend to run into issues when more than two percent of a buildings space is classified as mechanical. Also NYC does a lot of older structures that would be too costly to retrofit
- untog 11y ago> NYC's fascination with inefficient window units is really quite strange. I suppose landlords enjoy not having to pay for installation and maintenance of permanent units. Fascination is not the right word. As you correctly assert, landlords have no interest in installing permanent AC, so my window unit is my only option, and it isn't particularly fascinating.
- jacques_chester 11y agoI looked into split system A/C when I moved to NYC. The gist is that attaching anything to outside of a "historical" building requires planning approval, complete with engineering drawings and a public hearing. But hanging a window A/C out into the street? Somehow this does not affect historicity and so no approval is required. I'm vague on whether the rules apply to non-street facing installations (I live at the back of my building), but I don't know if I can be bothered to spend the money to find out. So window A/C it is.
- pervycreeper 11y agoThis kind of noise is the bane of my existence. Any good texts on this subject out there?
- Anechoic 11y agoFor a book that's lightly technical, there's F. Alton Everest's "Master Handbook of Acoustics" that discusses many aspects of acoustics, but does cover noise control and sound abatement. For more technical treatments, my go-to books are Leo Beranek's "Acoustics" (or Beranek's "Noise and Vibration Control" if you just care about the noise control aspect) and "Fundamentals of Acoustics" by Kinsler and Frey.
- pervycreeper 11y agoGreat, thanks!
- thrownaway2424 11y agoYour username lends your post an air of authority :)
- Uptrenda 11y agoWouldn't an epic startup idea be to build a ventilated, sound-proof, vibration-proof box for sleeping in and then sell it directly to consumers? I imagine it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than sound-proofing an entire house or having to move because of crappy neighbors and I'd sure as hell buy one if it existed. A device like that probably would have saved me from having to move from my last house under quite bad terms, plus imagine being able to have parties in your house and then being able to sleep when you get over it without having to wind down the whole party. There's probably multiple user-cases for such a device but I honestly don't know how practical this would be to build - acoustics != my field.
- dazc 11y agoA great idea that could be extended to include a soundproof work or study space?
- tomp 11y agoHow would you deal with claustrophobia?
- rangibaby 11y agoLike a capsule hotel: A high ceiling (enough to sit up inside the thing) and good ventilation should be enough to fool your brain into thinking you're in a larger space than you are. Maybe even have a curved screen on top and have a picture of the stars (or anything you like).
- gotchange 11y agoA great idea if you spend most of your time outside and your house is like a hostel for you to have a bed to crash on but if you spend a good amount of your time at home or you have a famliy, it would make more sense to invest more in securing your house altogether and not only the bed or sleeping pod as you suggested.
- tomjakubowski 11y agoThis is remarkably similar to an idea presented, and prototyped, on the most recent season of Nathan for You: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/hmzybk/nathan-for-you-hotel-sex-box--mature-content- http://www.cc.com/video-clips/hmzybk/nathan-for-you-hotel-se...
- whoiskevin 11y agoAnd yet everyone wonders why many choose to commute and not live in a crowded city or next to a freeway. The Bay Area is extremely noisy with most housing near major transit. Definitely a growing market for abatement services.
- Anechoic 11y agoI don't know why you were downvoted - transportation noise is the major noise course in this USA and creates a lot of negative affects. We as a society need mechanized transportation to function as we do, but it creates some negative effects. At the risk of sounding self-serving, we need to do more to help reduce these effects, but noise control is waaaaaaaaaaay down the list of problems that are addressed in capital transportation projects.
- kuschku 11y ago> noise control is waaaaaaaaaaay down the list of problems that are addressed in capital transportation projects. At least in Europe it is considered almost always. But seriously, this sounds like a vicious cycle: 1. Streets are too loud. 2. So you move further away, use car instead of walking. 3. Streets are even louder. 4. Even more people move into the suburbs.
- Anechoic 11y agoAt least in Europe it is considered almost always. I should have appended "in the USA" to that sentence. Europe is far, far ahead of us in terms of addressing noise in general and transportation noise in particular. For example, many Americans may have noticed that kitchen/home appliances (dishwashers, washing machines, etc) have gotten significantly quieter over the last decade or so. The reason for that is that an EU directive set maximum noise levels for common appliances. Because many manufacturers sell the same units to the US and to Europe, they designed all of their products to meet the noise spec and we Americans got the benefit. In terms of transportation noise, I am continually blown away by the public and private sector support consultants in western Europe get in support of noise analysis and noise mapping. I've seen projects in Europe spend more money address flow noise from a high-speed rail door handle than we get addressing noise over an entire rail corridor.
- discardorama 11y agoStreet noise can slowly wear down your nerves. I live in SF, and when I was dating my GF (now wife), she had an apt on a busy street (Oak Street); I live in an in-law garden unit. The first time I slept over at her place, I got barely any sleep. When she slept over at my place, all she heard was birds, leaves and the very occasional Harley or emergency vehicle. When she slept over, she woke up feeling so much better. So when it came time to move in together, there was no question where she wanted to be! On that topic: I wish we could have acoustical limits on vehicle noise. Those loud motorcycles with the fat pipes: they seriously need to control those.
- great_kraken 11y agoI moved to NYC a few months ago, from Long Island, and I have been experiencing morning headaches. If I look at my sleep logger app, I notice that after around 5-6 AM, my sleep quality goes way down and moves into mostly light sleep, almost no deep sleep or REM. There's definitely something to be said about how street noise affects our sleep patterns. For me, I'll have to try using earplugs more, but the stress on my ears isn't so nice because I'm a side sleeper. I wish I could just go to bed earlier, but I work on a remote team which is half in LA, and it would be counterproductive if I wasn't able to stay up past 10-11 PM... not to mention my schedule would conflict with that of my friends and roommates.
- bonniemuffin 11y agoHave you tried adding white noise, like sleeping with a fan on? I find it just as effective as earplugs, which make my ear canals hurt if I wear them all night. For me, it's not the volume of noise that hurts my sleep quality; it's the variations in the noise.
- great_kraken 11y agoHmm, I used to sleep with a fan on back in college for the heat and I did get used to it at the time. Maybe I'll try some white noise. Thanks.
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- pkaye 11y agoNoise is one of the factors we considered in buying a house. Through some experiments, we derived some metrics. We realized that anything closer than .25 miles from a highway and we would hear the noise during rush hour. Also you didn't want to have a house right adjacent to any of the busy streets. Its amazing how when we walk just one house away from a busy street how much the noise is attenuated. The peace and quiet when sitting in your backyard is something to value.
- mahyarm 11y agoI live in a condo next to a highway. With trees, some double pane glass, concrete construction and who knows what else, I don't hear highway noise at all. When I open the porch window, it sounds like quiet background white noise. I actually hear people coming in and out of the condo more than the highway.
- Anechoic 11y agoWith trees FYI, trees don't block sound unless the strand is extremely dense and at least 100-ft thick. Their value is more psychological (out-of-sight, out-of-mind) than physical in reducing the perception of noise.
- gniv 11y agoWe did similar experiments while looking for houses. One of the most surprising findings was that noise from the highway is much louder on cloudy days. Our theory was that clouds (or at least low altitude clouds) reflect noise back. It was strange to hear, quite clearly, highway noises from a mile away.
- ratsimihah 11y agoCan we hire her to tell the drunk people outside to shut up and the neighbor not to blast his tv at 2am?
- Tharkun 11y agoDrunks are a big problem in my neighbourhood, especially on weekends. Last night I had to get up at 05:00 to tell a bunch of drunks to bugger off. They didn't like that, so they made more noise. Sigh.
- noondip 11y agoMy strategy: shine a bright flashlight and don't say a word until they leave.
- emerongi 11y agoThis. People (especially drunks) don't like confrontation. Just make them feel uncomfortable and they'll want to get away from you, not the other way around. Shining a flashlight on them is freaking hilarious.
- Mandatum 11y agoThat actually sounds like a pretty good idea for smaller groups. Will definitely give it a try!
- nlh 11y agoI just went through a fairly thorough soundproofing project for my apartment in SF. (If anyone has any questions or needs advice, I'm happy to help.) Few things I learned: 1). It doesn't have to be expensive. My problem was that I live in a 2BR apartment with a wonderful roommate -- but we share a bedroom wall, and that wall is thin. So you can imagine the....awkwardness...at times. I got quotes from various soundproofing specialists that ranged from $10k to $25k (!!!) to thicken the shared wall and reinforce the bedroom doors. Hogwash. I did some research, bought some raw materials (Green Glue, QuietRock sheetrock, solid-core doors, door seals) and did the whole thing for a fraction of that price. 2) Sound science is fascinating and DIY projects like this are kinda fun :) I've never been much of a DIYer around the home, but it takes on a whole new appeal when you have a clean end goal in mind and your quality of life takes a major improvement when the mission is completed. Anyway -- this is a fascinating subject and I'm happy to geek out about it with anyone who's interested.
- noondip 11y agoHad you just reinforced the wall, or windows, too? If anyone has advice for sound-proofing street-facing glass, I would be obliged.
- martin_ 11y agoThat'd be great. I live on Hyde st right by a busy road and the cable car. I've become more immune to the noise but would love to reduce it. Acoustic dampening curtains have mixed reviews and are an expensive experiment. Any other ideas?
- alricb 11y agoOutside shutters, either roll up or swinging; better windows, with thicker glass and more layers; making sure the windows and door openings are properly air sealed, as well as all construction joints (corners, inside corners, where the wall meets a floor or the roof, the connection between the foundation wall or slab and the walls...). Also, all penetrations for wires, pipes, etc. need to be air sealed.
- 11y ago
- bubalus 11y ago> Sirens, rooftop fans, construction and upstairs neighbors who clomp about like a team of clog-dancing Clydesdales are common conditions of city living. It's amazing how oblivious some people are to the fact that every step they take is actually a huge stomp. I'm surprised their ankles don't shatter from repeatedly hammering their full body weight down onto their heels. Isn't it uncomfortable for them to use their heels like pistons? How does it not hurt?
- mwsherman 11y agoNoise is a particularly complex topic (and spiral) here in NYC. First, the housing stock is old. It’s hard to build new, mostly for zoning reasons. Old building will be more leaky and creaky. Unlike most of the country, even new construction does not include central air, and often does not include central heating. They use wall units called PTACs, even in “luxury” buildings. These units are loud. NYC is dense, which means each neighbor’s noise matters more, including our automotive “neighbors”. That said, sirens are far and away the biggest problem. They are loud enough to distort in one’s own ears. Well over 100db at street level. Apartments are close to the street. And clogged streets means emergency vehicles move slowly, while screaming. Reducing this outlier would be the single biggest win, even over car traffic, which is comparatively benign.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoI dunno. I think garbage trucks at night are by far more annoying than sirens. Maybe it depends on your neighborhood? I really think that NYC should mandate electric garbage trucks.
- Tharkun 11y agoThey wake me up every wednesday night. I live in a dead end street, so they have to reverse for the entire length of the street, all the while going beep beep beep, this vehicle is reversing, beep beep beep. I'm surprised that stuff isn't illegal.
- kuschku 11y agoYou should see them in my street (Kiel, Germany) in winter: Backing out, on ice, beep beep beep, sliding the hill back down, trying to back out again beep beep beep ... and repeat.
- ggreer 11y agoSoundproofing can be extremely useful, but it's also expensive and unavailable for most tenants. Because it involves construction work, quality soundproofing can't happen without the consent of the landlord. I think a lot of people are overlooking a solution that would improve quality of life: Make it easier to punish noisy people. Even when I've lived near busy streets like Van Ness, most of my annoyances have come from inside the building, not outside. It's amazing how much grief a careless neighbor can inflict on the dozens around them. All it takes is a subwoofer and a taste for bass. Even if multiple neighbors complain, there's little that can be done. In my case, most of the neighbors –including myself– gave up and moved. Had the laws been more reasonable, the only one moving would be the cause of the nuisance.
- Futurebot 11y agoYup. Another thing is that many older NYC apartment buildings are built with paper thin walls/floors, which obviously has no easy fix. Another issue, especially for people who are just "passing through" the city is a lack of concern for others since they aren't around long. My current building, for example, has people moving in an out every 4-6 months. Hard for many to care when they view their apartment as a glorified hotel room. The choices in these cases are passive-aggressive notes in the lobby, or direct confrontation at 3AM when the bass is pumping, which is what it usually comes down to, unfortunately.
- puredemo 11y agoDon't most renters have to sign a year lease?
- Futurebot 11y agoYup. Doesn't seem to stop people. They just take the security deposit hit and move on.
- bradleyjg 11y agoOlder buildings, at least those built prior to WWII, are specifically sought out because they don't have paper thin walls and floors. They generally have plaster interior walls, thick poured concrete floors, and triple layer masonry exterior walls. Postwar buildings on the other hand tend to have gypsum (sheetrock) interior walls, thinner reinforced concrete floors acoustically bound to the frame, and thinner exterior walls. Newer windows are much quieter, but that's something that can be updated fairly easily. The worst buildings were probably built from the end of WWII to the early 1970s. Stuyvesant Town apartments, for example, are terribly noisy.
- somberi 11y agoAs a owner of an apartment in Greenwhich village, noise-proofing windows is the extent to which I am allowed to modify my apartment. All else will involve appealing to the board, appeasing the neighbors during the construction phase and other headaches - not to mention the cost. But these windows at about 500$ do a pretty good job.
- jensen123 11y agoI'm surprised how little focus there is on noise insulation for apartments. This does not seem to be a high priority for most apartment complexes being constructed. For example, most people seem to care more about the size of the apartment than whether or not it's quiet. Personally, I'd rather live in a quiet 500-square-foot apartment than a noisy 2000-square-foot one. But I guess I'm different from most people.
- jacques_chester 11y agoNew apartments are built to be sold, not be lived in. If it looks good when it sells, that's all that matters. For this reason, much of the sought-after stock in NYC are townhouses that were built for, and occupied by, particular families and then later subdivided.
- jinushaun 11y agoNo one ever mentions this, but do you know what is almost as bad? The ocean. I have romantic ideas about living next to the beach. Worse than living next to a highway.
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