Hello.

Unfortunately we do have noisy neighbors who like to entertain themselves with loud music which penetrates our bedroom window. To give ourselves some peace and quiet I am thinking of putting an extra pane of glass in front of our double pane picture window (similar to a storm window only on the inside), in order to create a dead space area which might minimize the noise pollution. Since the picture window is flush with the outside wall and not the inside wall, there is space to erect an extra frame and have it flush with the inside wall. However I am not sure whether to use glass or plexiglass, and how thick it should be to get maximum result. In addition I am wondering about condensation..

If anyone has answers or suggestions, they are much appreciated.

 

Greetings. Sorry to hear about the noisy neighbor problems.

Unfortunately, just putting on a storm window won't help the problem at all. The best solution would be to replace the window with an insulating glass unit that has a high sound deadening rating. Perhaps the comments in the thread at http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=215211 would be interesting in this regard.

Sadly, only a small percentage of the noise is coming through your window anyway, most is probably low frequency bass that reverberates through the entire house, effectively turning the house into a very large "speaker" of sorts. I'd say that your attempts to reduce the noise in the house would be best handled by the local police.

Seriously, if you want to do anything to the windows, look into a triple pane, krypton filled IGU with an STC rating above 40. If your local glass shop knows anything about STC and sound reduction, they can probably fix you up.

Making one window more soundproof will only be like a band-aid on a much bigger problem though, since the noise is also passing through the walls.

 

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately these people are not open for reasoning and local ordinance has it that the police can order them to turn the music off only after 10:00 PM. However don't get me started on this subject Anyway, the reason I was thinking of putting an extra window in, was that we noticed after replacing the old windows (double hung, single pane ones with a storm window) with new ones (picture, double pane ones, low e/argon) that the noise (loud music, traffic) seemed to be louder instead of less as we had hoped. I thought of trying to create a similar situation again with putting an extra window on the inside that noise levels might go down again.

I did read the article and it looks that I might have to be on the lookout for laminated glass........

 

Has your problem been solved? It seems like you are having the exact same issues as we are - the new are actually louder than the new ones.

 

Hi, no we have not solved this issue yet. However it is interesting to learn that we are not the only ones that seem to have this problem. First I thought it had something to do with the materials (we went from wood frames to vinyl ones) however since our living room window is quite large, the new one has a wood frame just as the old one, and still it seems that more outside noise is seeping through.

I am still planning on buying special isolating glass, to frame it and use it as an inside storm window. I just cannot imagine that that would not improve our situation, but then that is what I thought when we replaced our old leaky single pane windows and leaky storm windows with the new double pane windows.

 

We just met with a vendor who sells Preservation windows - triple pane with krypton. I think we are going to replace the double pan, single strength windows we bought and get these installed.

I'll let you know how it goes, but from all the research we have done, it appears that triple pane with 1 inch total pane width may suffice our needs.

 

It might be useful to try some simple experiments and observations, to understand the nature of the "acoustic coupling" path between your neighbor's house and your house. First an observation: the air space between your 2 houses greatly attenuates low frequencies (bass frequencies). I would therefore guess that low frequencies are not the primary problem.

The sound coupling across the air space and into your house is (I would predict) predominately mid-frequencies and high frequencies. In traditional sound-studio design, a very heavy and well-sealed door provides excellent acoustic isolation for these sound frequecies (typically 40+ db of acoustic isolation). Here's a simple experiment to test the theoretical improvement possible with a better window: temporarily affix a sheet of 3/4" plywood over the picture window, using weather stripping to provide a good acoustic seal around the edges, where the plywood contacts the facing of the window frame. You could just hold this plywood in place, pressing firmly with your body weight, and listen to the result.

If you'd like some help with additional sound-coupling experiments and analysis, I'd suggest contacting your local diy audiophile and home theater hobbiest group. These hobbiests love experimenting with sound, they know a lot, and they like helping anyone who takes an interest in their hobby.

The other general approach to solving your problem, would be to convince your neighbors to modify their behavior. I know you've already tried to negotiate with them, however in my experience there's almost always a way to find the "pressure points". Whenever I'm faced with an apparently insoluble people-problem like this, I consult with a friend who's the CEO of a 100-employee software company here in Seattle. Every day (for the past 20 years) he's had to coerce the cooperation of reluctant corporate vendors, and he's an expert at finding highly effective, minimal-effort solutions to people-problems!

Good luck!

 

I would also recommend reading "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by Everest, available at your library or from Amazon.com for $20 + $3.50 shipping (in like-new condition). This is a very practical nuts-and-bolts book, despite its fancy name; no knowledge of acoustics is needed. Chapter 8: "Control of Interfering Noise" describes the design rules for the "double window" that separates a recording studio from the control room [The following text is excerpted and paraphrased]:

"The window mounting must minimize acoustic coupling from the interior wall to the exterior wall. One source of coupling is the window frame, another is the stiffness of the air between the glass panels.

Heavy plate glass should be used, the heavier the better. The glass should be isolated from the frame by rubber or other pliable strips. The spacing between the two glass plates should be at least 4" if possible.

The wood frames for the two glass plates must be acoustically isolated from each other. This isolation can be achieved by using a staggered-stud-wall construction, creating in effect an interior wall and an exterior wall that don't touch. (Another way to achieve the desired acoustic isolation, is to construct the control-room wall or house wall out of concrete blocks).

Finally, stuff acoustically absorbent material (e.g. fiberglass insulation) into the dead-air space in the stud wall, above and below the edges of the two window frames. This stuffing will absorb sound in the air space between the two glass plates, and will add significantly to the overall acoustic isolation."

Figure 8-9 in the book shows all of these construction details. Chapter 8 also describes the construction of walls and doors for optimum acoustic isolation.