Noisy neighbours or a building with poor acoustics?

CityLiving:Either way, check for sound performance before buying, writes Edel Morgan

You've bought into a new development and find yourself living to the interminable backdrop of banging doors, flushing toilets and constant chatter emanating from next door, above or below you (or all three). While your instinct might be to declare war on your neighbour, it might be more pertinent to turn your attentions to the builder and ask them to bring the sound insulation up to standard.

Generally, when people are buying a new home the last question they think to ask is about the acoustic performance of the floors and walls. "Acoustic wha?" may well be the response of your local estate agent but it might be worth talking to someone on the residents' association or to the management company of the builder's previous schemes.

New homes should be sold with an acoustic rating (from A to E) so consumers know how buffered they will be against the minutiae of their neighbours's lives, says Rob Connolly, sound technician with DB Acoustics. He says the minimum standards of sound insulation under the building regulations are not being enforced, leaving builders under no real obligation to comply. Incredibly for a city where apartments and high density townhouse developments are being being thrown up at a record rate and people are expected to live cheek by jowl, he says some builders have never even seen an acoustic test being carried out - even though the regulations were introduced a decade ago. "In the case of some of the smaller guys especially, it doesn't even enter their heads to do it because no one is pushing down on them," he says.

In fact, errant builders are almost offered a cop-out clause under Section 4.11 of Technical Guidance Document E for Sound which states that, if a property fails the acoustic test, it won't necessarily fail to comply with the building regulations. All it takes is a tiny gap left in a wall for the level of insulation to drop dramatically.

Connolly says he deals mainly with new-build developments and is usually either called upon by reputable builders to sound test new schemes or by home-owners who want to find out if they've been sold a pup.

He recently came across a case where neighbours living in adjoining semi-ds fell out so acrimoniously that one household eventually sold up. "One neighbour complained they could hear everything from conversations to drawers and wardrobes being closed and water running, and were conscious of every little noise. The other neighbour wasn't as bothered by it because some people are more sensitive to noise levels than others. Bad insulation can cause unnecessary friction between people because they are not necessarily being deliberately noisy, just living their lives."

When viewing a new development alarm bells should ring if wardrobe fittings are drilled directly into walls - there should be a separation to buffer noise. Noise follows the weakest route and bare brick attic walls can cause airborne sound to travel upwards and then radiate back down into a house. Noise in apartments travel through uninsulated service shafts in apartment blocks which can cause noise to reverberate though a building, particularly if they are positioned near entrance doors or above a car-park.

In the UK there is random testing of new homes and regulations were revised in 2003 which penalise builders who don't account for low frequency noise, like washing machines, TV and speech which finds it way through gaps and "can be very annoying", says Connolly.

His experience is that, if tests prove that the sound insulation is below standard, builders usually agree to remedy the situation rather than find themselves in court. "My advice to them would be to go and fix it. They don't want to get themselves a bad reputation. If people have paid a fortune for an apartment they are surely entitled to enjoy it."