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Comment by awinter-py | Hacker News Reader

hmm -- no mention here of the rising cost of silence. It is very expensive to purchase 8 hours of quiet in a major city.

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Depends on the city and the building materials used.

After moving to Germany, I was blown away by the property prices (relative to comparable buildings internationally) and the building materials.

This is a typical German door, with a bevel: http://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AIA/UploadedImag...

Typically these have a matching rubber seal, which dramatically reduces noise and draughts: https://www.modern-doors.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/...

Additionally the apartment walls are like a bunker, which means you don't hear traffic, trains or your neighbours even if you live in a city centre.

I am always impressed the building standards and systems in Germany.

I had a look at these doors as I was intruiged and beguiled by them. They always felt substantial and well-engineered to me. I found that one typically buys a 'door set' which includes a frame and door which have been made to work, lock, seal etc together. You can then fix the door set into your building. In the UK this is not typically the case, I don't know about the states or elsewhere.

The systems for tiling are also wonderful and exported throughout the world (see Schluter). There is a trend of concealing toilet cisterns by companies such as Gerberit, although I hear these aren't as reliable as the doors. I'm still on the lookout for more of these systems (I can see there's a standard for residential electric circuit breakers, I haven't got to the bottom of those yet). I love how well thought-out they are.

Germans are civil engineering Gods. Here's a factory-made, German Huf Haus, which was built in a factory in Germany, and shipped over from Germany to the UK on the back of a truck, and then installed on-site in just one week:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xx0k9r_se04e06-grand-design...

I'm surprised to hear those heavy duty doors are not available internationally, they utterly destroy any interior door in terms of quality that I was familiar with growing up.

I can tell you that you can throw a full blown house party without the neighbours hearing a peep, and you almost never use the heating if you live a few floors up (a few days per year at most due to the completely sealed building and the rising heat from downstairs neighbours).

Yes those Huf Häuser are amazing.

I found that there were suppliers of the doors in the UK but I haven't looked further afield. The windows (opening two different directions) are also similarly impressive though much more widespread. I spend half my time in Germany trying to look out for these things and marvelling at them.

Now that you mention it, I have one of those "floating" toilets, very similar to this one, including the recessed flush button, except in grey: http://www.decraplastics.co.uk/sanitaryware/images/geberit%2...

The nice thing is, you can easily hoover and mop under the cistern very quickly, instead of dust gathering behind it like with a typical toilet. It's a simple, unassuming design too, does just the job and stays out of the way otherwise.

Other details that I've noticed is every single door, inside and out, has that bevel/seal combination I mentioned, and not just in higher-end building like offices either but also regular apartments.

Yes those are the toilets! I was amazed by them and found that the flush control clicks out and the access to the cistern is behind it, and that's why typically the flush button is so large, because you just tile the whole cistern into the wall and mount the toilet to it. Interesting design. I've read that it isn't without its problems and has to be installed quite carefully. But it seems very widespread in Germany.

The doors - yes. With beautiful solidity. I had a look and possibly Grauthoff is a name of one manufacturer. When I was last in Berlin I kept looking for labels or manufacturer marks but I couldn't find any. I daresay someone in construction in Germany would immediately know.

Germany can also get away with more solid wall materials due to a relative lack of earthquakes I think. I could be totally wrong.

I'm drooling now.

Any chance that stuff (doors and whatnot) is available for sale in or to the US? I'm in a crazy noisy American city with 19th century levels of noise isolation (literally).

I don't know any brands for doors, but try googling for brands and see if there are US distributors. The doors are usually solid all the way through (none of this plywood nonsense with cardboard in the middle) in addition to the bevel + rubber padding around the edge.

Failing that, some of the major German "baumarkt" (building supplies stores) chains:

http://www.hornbach.com/de/index.html

http://www.obi.de/decom/home.html

https://www.toom-baumarkt.de/

Use google translate and see what you get. It might be worth investigating the pricing on a shipping container if you have an upcoming renovation or build in mind, shipping is cheap these days due to the global supply glut. If you have a friend who wants to do a project, a 40 foot container will cost you the same whether it's 10% or 100% full so you split the cost (weight doesn't matter). Try a shipping forwarder to the US or maybe you know someone in Germany and order to their address, and forward it.

I had a look at the UK and found a company called http://www.doorsets.org.uk. These guys look like they import these kind of doors into the UK, and they say their brands are manufactured by a company called Grauthoff. They have an English site at http://www.grauthoff.com/en/ - I couldn't find any USA importers but there might be some leads for you to try out there. Best of luck. Perhaps someone from Grauthoff can tell you if they export, or possibly there are companies similar to Grauthoff.

> I am always impressed the building standards and systems in Germany.

Our German friend constantly remarks about how terrible the roads are here. And not even like roads that I'd consider bad (I-95 in New Jersey). Ones like GW Parkway that I thought were pretty good.

I can tell you the Autobahn is being constantly maintained, it seems like there's roadworks everywhere. Another interesting thing I didn't know about it is that you are expected to have your car in tip-top condition for driving at night, as there's virtually no street lighting on it.

Are these things required by code or are German consumers just very discerning?

How can I learn more about this stuff?

I guess we Germans take pride in our engineering. I don't know about the code, but I could very easily imagine it being stricter than in th U.S.

For example, anecdotally, a major reason for Germans to oppose TTIP is that we're concerned about our standards in consumer and health protection and build quality. U.S. standards are perceived to be much lower (although the reality is of course not always like that).

You can read more about EU energy efficiency requirements here:

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency/buil...

You can be sure Germany had a primary role in establishing these standards.

> hmm -- no mention here of the rising cost of silence. It is very expensive to purchase 8 hours of quiet in a major city.

Not really expensive if you are only considering sleep.

http://www.howardleight.com/earplugs/laser-lite

I buy them by the 200 count for about $30, works out to $0.15 per pair. I started using these for motorcycling years ago then woodwork and blacksmithing or any time I use loud machines. For sleeping I use them a couple of times before throwing them away, for other activities they're single use.

I also run a fan in my bedroom and have a cheap ($20) white-noise generator for use with a baby that I can use when traveling.

While this won't solve your problem, I find that good foam earplugs improve my quality of sleep immensely. They are reusable, washable and cost next to nothing (eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00374LCFS). Also I have this mask for sleeping when it is light outside and it's worth every penny (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00939UXCY/).

This is one of the biggest reasons that I (happily) choose to live in the suburbs. It is silent at night. Some people seem to consider this a bad thing ("it's so boring!"), but I find that I sleep much better than I ever have when I have lived in cities.

You're right. You would think that insane housing prices would at least include a bit of soundproofing here and there.

You pay for the location, not construction. And the US is infamous for being cost driven, not quality driven. Cheapest possible way to get at the given location means cheapest possible construction.

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