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Comment by FredPret | Hacker News Reader

Between the ages of 15 and 30, I was very much on board with this.

But now I’ve lived with shared walls a bit too long, and my tolerance for the antics of others is asymptotically approaching zero.

Plus, it’s not like we need a one-size-fits-all solution.

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In the EU they have much higher construction standards including much thicker walls and floors that block sound between units better. I wish the US could duplicate that, though that would increase building costs which are already high here.

The EU is composed of 27 countries, with varying construction standards. In Romania, you can hear when your neighbors flush the toilet, especially in new constructions.

Okay fair enough, but you understand my point. Some EU countries have higher standards that avoid the issue of hearing your neighbor. I remember watching a tour of a construction site that an american construction manager was going on and the floors were radiant heat, which meant they were 9-12 inches thick of concrete and the walls were also 9 or so inches.

I can confirm that. I live in a new apartment building (in Austria) and basically never hear neighbors even though the building is full of children. Older buildings can be significantly worse in sound isolation.

But the apartment prices are very high in comparison to US, not sure how much is it because of the better construction standards. Houses are financially out of reach for many/most people.

A lot of EU dwelling construction is built to be as energy efficient as possible. They use CMUs VS timber, and plaster their bricks instead of hanging drywall in large part because they can make it more energy efficient but also because Europe lacks ample timber supplies in many areas compared to North America. But energy is far more expensive in the EU than in North America so it's more important to save money there. Saving that, insulation in American homes is really good today and I believe R15 is the minimum allowed in new construction.

The drawbacks are European construction tends to be very bland and basic and small compared to homes in America. They also don't have HVAC (I think they'll regret this if the planet continues to heat) or forced air and tend to use radiant heating which is great, but requires high levels of insulation to be effective.

Saying that, you can have your timber framed home have thicker walls or have rockwool, etc put into the internal walls which will deaden noise like old plaster/lath walls.

I'm in a new building that uses sound isolating tech in the US and it's fantastic. You get some noise coming in from the front door since it's metal but both neighbors around me have dogs and I've almost never heard them. Every once in a while I can hear the slight vibration of the dog upstairs dropping its ball on the ground, but that's about it.

I've been in sound-proofed condo's before, and it's dramatically better. But it doesn't solve all the problems stemming from having dozens of families down the hall.

Some issues include: - garbage in the hallway - AirBnB renting to some dodgy characters who then roam the hallways, vomit in the elevator, and worse - People taking my parking spot - Smell of cigarette smoke

All of the above in a fancy building in a nice area.

The density allows for some incredible things in the neighbourhood, which is a good tradeoff though. I like having a concierge to receive packages and having good restaurants and other things around.

I just like that there are all these different options. None of them are - or have to be - the Ultimate Housing Answer.

My building solves this by banning rentals shorter than 3 months and aggressively tracking and fining idiots who leave rubbish around or park in the wrong spot.

There are great buildings, suburbs, and rural communities!

Yeah part of the problem is that US construction is low quality. You'd have to upskill developers and construction teams here because they currently can't make sound isolated buildings here.

Once the technology makes it here from elsewhere, we should be able to do this stuff.

Nope. It's entirely in regulation.

Developers in EU are forced to build to some standard of sound and thermal isolation. If given the option believe me they'd make it as cheap as possible too, just that law disallows it.

I think the issue in the US today is that increasing density within cities has become so absurdly difficult that we are making the "one-size-fits-all solution" be suburban sprawl.

Getting whatever drugs someone is smoking wafting through at a friend's apartment was a wake up call too. If I could be relegated to a "boring people" section, I might be more interested in a denser living situation.

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