vibrations from new motorway coming into my house

Zzee

My apologies if I am in the wrong forum, didnt know where to post this. A new motorway opened up about half a mile from my house, just over a week ago and my house feels as if it is vibrating ever since. The noise is particularly bad at night time. I have checked with a few neighbours and they said they have notice a low humming sound as well but not so bad that they are being kept awake (which we are).

I was told to check the following, but dont have a clue how to go about doing any of these, hence my post and the questions:
- check if a sound barrier wall has been built along the motor way.Who would I check this out with - the Roads Authority, the county council for my area? If its a big concrete wall that I have seen on other motorways, Im nearly certain one hasnt been built.
- check the water pipes and get them checked by an experienced plummer, that the water in them could be vibrating because of the new motorway? I do have a plummer but dont know if he is that experienced. If it is that the water is vibrating, could I fit anything to the pipes to stop the sound travelling
- check on getting my open air vents closed off. I know this is a complex issue as I do have gas but my other neighbours dont and have no open air vents, it was suggested to me that the vents are allowing motorway noise to travel into the house. If I could get the vents properly sorted out, could I hire someone to do this (ie do it safely , get another form of ventilation in for the gas/)
- check on the windows : a neighbour from another road thinks all my walls are windows are vibrating. Certainly, when I open a window, the motorway is hardly audible but with the window closed,its very noticable.Would changing the windows to accoustic laminiated windows help? I have huge windows all over the house and as they came with it, I dont know how good they are. I do know they are double glazed.

Just to say, earplugs are a waste of money, the sound goes right through them which may indicate that its vibrations which are our sound, and nothing else (have used ear plugs before for other sounds and they worked a dream).

If anyone has any information or advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

darkman2

Im not trying to be ignorant but are you sure it's a "motorway"? *not aware of any of them opening in the last few weeks. Could you in general terms say a: what type of road it actually is and b: the number of the dual carriageway? Im sure that might help others in understanding and answering your query.:)

Zzee

Its the N4 upgrade, speeds are up to 80 kilometres. I have been told (after checking many other things out) that the sound is most likely the motorway.

godtabh

Zzee wrote: »

Its the N4 upgrade, speeds are up to 80 kilometres. I have been told (after checking many other things out) that the sound is most likely the motorway.

Which section?

How long have you lived there for?

From what I can remember 500m from the source would put you on the other edges of any potential consequence of the motorway/n4

Sleipnir

a half mile though.... I dont' think vibrations from cars would travel that far for it to be noticeable. Unless it's solid granite with no cracks between it and your house! I'm not saying you're crazy or that you're imagining it, I'd just be amazed if that were the case.

I live on a fairly busy road in Dublin city centre and my house doesn't 'vibrate' with the cars going by. Odd....

I wouldn't get your air vents closed off anyway. They're there for a reason.

mawk

I agree with Sleipnir, a half mile is a long way for road vibration to travel and cause resonance. I think its time to call on ockams razor: the most likely solution is that a troupe of mole people has been digging under your house and using the road construction to mask the sound. now they are finished and their underground generators are set on uneven mounts and are vibrating.


in other news, the abstract from this paper on a similar problem jists that the noise barrier has no effect on vibration and that the vibration in down to poor road surface.


Résumé / Abstract

Since the construction of a noise barrier beside the motorway near their home, a family suffers from nuisance caused by vibration. Prior to the building activities of the noise barrier there had never been a problem with vibration. The family is convinced that the noise barrier in some way introduces or amplifies the vibration caused by traffic using the motorway. In order to find the cause of the vibration and the relevance of the noise barrier, vibration measurements have been done. These measurements show that the traffic using the motorway is indeed the main cause of the vibration in the building. The noise barrier, however/has no influence on the vibrations. The fact that nuisance occurred in the same period as the building activities, is mainly due to the fast decline of the road-surface influenced by the building activities. The measurements also showed that the floor (especially the bedroom floor) reacted very strongly to vibration with a dominant frequency of 17 Hz. To reduce the vibration, it has been advised that the road-surface of the motorway be renewed and the possibility of modifying the floor to reduce the 17Hz resonance be considered.

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17651965

you could take the issue to the council and try get them to alter the surface?

im also hurt that you posted on askaboutmoney before boards. shame.

godtabh

I was standingby the N4 last night waiting for a bus. No vibrations 1 m from the carriageway.

There was noise but you expect that beside a road like this

Dundhoone

You can rule out vibrations via the water/waterpipes also. Red herring.

Is it simply the noise that is the issue? It will take some getting used to.

Large windows certainly dont help, I wouldnt reccommend blocking your vents but there may be vents available with acoustic baffles.

coolwings

Zzee wrote: »

... The noise is particularly bad at night time. ....

Consider this:
If there is a low frequency vibration caused by rolling traffic on the road surface, then this would maximise at daytime, and minimise at night, in correlation to traffic volume. Low frequency vibration penetrates solid objects well and can therefore travel through the ground.

Traffic is at a minimum at night time. But you said above that your problem is worst at night.

So based on your own information, this suggests that vibration is not the problem.

If we consider high frequency acoustic noise as a source of the problem instead:

High frequency sound does not penetrate objects well, and so travels airborne. A wind will interfere with such sound transmission. If the wind is coming from the road towards your house, then the wind is effectively reducing the distance the sound travels, and will increase it's intensity. A wind from the house towards the road will reduce the intensity of acoustic sound in an opposite way.

If your problem is maximised when the wind direction is from the road, and minimised when the wind direction is towards the road, then this fits with high frequency sound.

But it should still be a match with traffic volume, and not peak at night.

The only way I can imagine a peak at night is if it happened to be perceived acoustic noise, where you compare the noise with background noise, and make a judgment as to intensity which is relative, not absolute. Then at night when background noise is low, you might think that a lower level of traffic noise SEEMS greater than a higher level of the same during day, because there are more other background noises during day.

I lived in the past near a waterfall on a river. The visitors said how do you sleep with that noise. The locals did not hear it. If it is perceived noise, as in the paragraph above, it will go away as you get used to it.

Acoustic noise (absolute level) will not go away, it is greatly reduced at low cost by a simple line of trees. Plant evergreens so not to lose the buffer in winter. But it would minimise at night, not maximise, as you described your particular problem.