Home Owners: Banishing Noise Pollution Once And For All

If you trawl the internet for long enough you will quickly start to see all of the factors that buyers prioritize when it comes to the purchase of a new home. Some of them are obvious, such as the size of bedrooms, while others maybe aren't - with some real estate agents telling sellers to brew fresh coffee before a viewing, because the smell is proven to have a positive effect on buyers!

We're not going to tell you to pull out a sledgehammer and get to work on your bedroom size, or buy a brand new coffee machine, this guide is for another reason. Noise pollution is something that can blight absolutely any home.

You could have a picturesque mansion, but if it's situated inappropriately nobody wants to live next to a barrage of noise, whatever the source, for years and years.

Rather than seeing buyers walk away time and time again, there are solutions to rectify this issue.

The first is probably one of the most obvious out there - just thicken your glazing. If you have single glazing, it goes without saying that the benefits of upgrading to double will be tremendous. Alternatively, triple glazing offers even more rewards - albeit at a much higher cost.

Of course, most readers will have probably already explored and executed these avenues. Therefore, we're going to concentrate the bulk of this article on a slightly different tip; window treatments.

On first glance, a set of window blinds or curtains surely couldn't make all the difference to blocking out that terrible racket outside. If you opt for one of the thin, traditional types - you're probably right. The material is just too thin to make a noticeable difference.

Over the years manufacturers have started to explore just how blinds can aid with noise-related problems though. Their solution was initially for cold rooms, and the need to insulate them. However, insulated blinds also perform superbly well in relation to noise prevention, and here's why.

These are blinds which are constructed with a honeycomb shape, effectively creating small pockets. The trick is, particularly in very noisy areas, is to purchase insulated blinds which are at least two or three levels thick. That means that there can be three cells, with each one acting as an insulating layer. Such inventions have been found to work wonders from a thermal perspective and science means that the same occurs with sound.

Will these blinds eradicate all of your outside noise once and for all? It's impossible to say without analyzing just how much your property is subject to noise pollution. Still, the difference they can make is tremendous and when compared with the benefits of upgrading to triple glazing, there really isn't much of dissimilarity. Unsurprisingly, they are much cheaper than performing such a major structural alteration to your home though, which is why this method could be one of the best solutions from a value point of view.