3 ms·
for me, i personally find that the construction of the apartment matters a lot more than how noisy my neighbors are; I moved from a duplex in a very quiet nei
by lsc 7y ago
for me, i personally find that the construction of the apartment matters a lot more than how noisy my neighbors are; I moved from a duplex in a very quiet neighborhood in sunnyvale to an apartment right under the SJC flight path, but the old place was last updated in the '60s and had single-pane windows, while the new place was built in the '80s and upgraded pretty significantly in the aughts. It is rare that I hear noises loud enough to notice over a running fan or air purifier when the windows are all buttoned up.
Double/triple pane windows make a huge difference (as does offset studs drywall standoffs)
- vonseel 7y agoI agree but unfortunately in my experience the opposite is true in Texas - newer construction usually has thinner walls with less dampening between dwellings. Windows are usually fine though.
- lsc 7y agoHuh. that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of; I always attributed the difference in quality to just, you know, the stricter housing code and better building tech in general... but that's not the only factor at work in Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, sure, most of the housing stock was built rather a long time ago, yes, but it was also built to the expectations of people who didn't make a lot of money. The newer stuff around here is built for people who are in the top 5% or better of incomes, so it's likely they use more expensive construction techniques, too.
- nitrogen 7y agoI'm living in a newer building in SF, and while it's not like the walls are paper thin, the construction is still lacking in many respects, especially ventilation (toxic levels of anything airborne travel from apartment to apartment) and floor-to-floor noise isolation.