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Comment by ryfm | Hacker News Reader

no, i'm not attached to my car, i just want some privacy and a quite area. i used to leave in 3 countries, changed a number of cities (from 50K to 10M) lived in all types of appartments and i finally have had enough of noisy neigbours in the middle of night.

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That's a call for thick walls (including/especially party walls, floors and ceilings) and triple-pane windows, not restrictions on density. Unfortunately, due to the real estate industry's fixation on square footage and granite countertops to the exclusion of any other measure of quality, that's not likely to happen in most places.

it might be hard due to HOA/condo rules; and if you rent the place than good luck trying to change anything there.

and given the way condos built in the US/canada it's just impossible, i was pretty surprised when i saw a six floors condo built with wooden frame, something like that: https://imgur.com/usO1i9r

The most effective soundproofing is designed in at construction time, it's difficult to impossible to add it in later, unless you're willing to build an entire noise-isolated shell within your walls.

I have a hard time imagining HOA/condo rules working against soundproofing--if anything they'd be thrilled about it if you were willing to put in the money, since it improves the value of the property and community. Yeah, renters are out of luck, but too many landowners are too short-sighted to improve their properties and increase rent to capture the additional value.

BTW, wooden frames can be very soundproof, as long as you pack every wall and ceiling with heavy (i.e. rock wool or cellulose) insulation and ceiling and mount drywall on standoffs instead of directly on studs.

i mentioned it because i have an anecdotical evidence right now - a friend of mine is fighting with his HOA trying to replace windows in his appartments. The only solution he came up by today is to become a part of HOA committee and then change the rules they have. i have another solution in mind - to stay away from HOA in the first place.

i bet they can be soundproof but what i see here is that the builders are trying to cut every corner they can, trying to build as much as possible houses/condos which are sold even before the construction begins (http://www.seattletimes.com/business/home-prices-soar-again-...).

I suspect that they aren't objecting to the sound proofing itself, but an architectural change of using a different style of windows than the rest of the units.

That's my suspicion too--the most airtight and thus soundproof windows are casements, which are common in continental Europe but less so in Anglophone countries where sash windows dominate, and HOAs (as well as historical preservation committees--the bane of energy efficient retrofits everywhere) often take a dim view of replacing the latter with the former.

We live in a flat that is in ~1800 townhouse that was converted to flats about ~1900. Have never heard a single noise from neighbours (external walls are 1m sandstone!). We also have original shutters on most windows which do a lot to overcome the weaknesses of old sash windows.

Once you move in, you can always save up for a year or two, rip out the drywall, put in some insulation and remount the drywall on resilient channels. Windows generally aren't a problem since even the crappiest code-minimum windows are pretty good these days. Floors are a challenge though, unless you can convince downstairs neighbors to put in some insulation or just straight up pay for it yourself.

I live in a townhouse with neighbors on both sides and never hear any of the neighbors (except for when their kids are playing in the back patio). Quality construction can go a long way toward giving you the privacy you desire. no need to separate houses by 30 feet of grass.

Separate houses and grass don't provide any meaningful sound protection. They may get you down from "100 offensive sounds per day" to 10, but that's far less effective than just building proper insulation.

townhouse is almost a house in that regard, now try a highrise where you can't choose quality construction. once when i rented appartments on the sixth floor i had to call the police to stop an argument happening on the 4th floor in the middle of the night. and i'm not even talking about some kids showing off theirs 'sporty' bikes/cars at 2am.

When I lived in a high-rise, I chose one that had quality construction with decent soundproofing between units. I rarely hear neighbors in any direction (above, below or to either side).

Unless you're a prisoner (or someone else is paying for your housing because you can't afford it), you can always choose quality of construction -- it may not be where you want to live, or might be more than you want to pay, but it's still your choice.

You've just chosen to make a tradeoff and accepted the noisy building (and you've rewarded those that built the thin walled, noisy building by paying to live there).

I yet to see in the US/Canada something built differently from this https://imgur.com/usO1i9r

and if we're talking about a real highrise then good luck trying to change a door or window frames there to soundproof ones.

Anyways i'm not trying to convince anyone, but after more than 30 years spent in different types of appartments i'm pretty happy in my own house.

I live in a relatively new apartment building in SF; and it's fairly well isolated (against sound). I've heard people from above my floor once, and just barely; it sounded like they were moving heavy furniture, i.e. not something you do regularly. If I play music in my apartment I can barely hear it standing directly in front of my apartment's door. They're constructing a bunch more additional buildings nearby, and some of them are the wood style you reference, and others look more solid.

FWIW, even with a mostly wood based construction, you can still insulate well. It just takes the desire to do so.

The obvious solution here is to have zoning that mandates high-quality soundproofing. I don't think the pro-development crowd would object in the least if this was bundled with substantially higher density limits. That's the kind of regulation that's relatively unobjectionable.

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