Buying a house next to busy road

[DimPrawn]

The sort of A road that has 24 hour traffic rumbling by? Police sirens going at all hours? Heavy trucks thundering past? Is it used by bikers racing on a Sunday morning?

The only way to find out is go and see it for yourself, at all times of day and in all weathers. Imagine high summer when you want the windows open, or want to be in the garden.

Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Too many possible negatives.

Bikers quite like the small hours too. Especially those without silencers on their bikes attempting to hit the magic 200mph mark.

Personally I like to have a good 5 miles in between me and major roads for this reason.

It would be a living hell. I'd budget another £1m on top of the £550K for something approaching liveable.

[WTFH]

I compromised on a double garage, but then again garages didn't exist in the early 1800s. Other things more than made up for it.


If I ever come into a LOT of money, I'll buy the neighbour's house (built in the early 1900s), knock it down and build a garage (in the style of an 1800s cottage) on part of the land, while turning their garden into an orchard. I reckon it would cost around £750k.

[PurpleGorilla]

I reckon it would cost around £750k.

Isn't that the going rate for a parking space in London?

[DimPrawn]

Isn't that the going rate for a parking space in London?

Don't talk rubbish! You'd get a double space for that. Probably.

London parking space UK's most expensive - Business Insider

[d000hg]

A garden at the rear might be pretty quiet if the houses shield the sound well. If bedrooms are also arranged so you can sleep at the back of the house it might not be an issue.
With good glazing it should be very quiet inside anyway BUT obviously the moment you open a window this changes.

Air pollution is a factor too, it depends how busy the road is and who uses it - just a constant flow of cars, or loads of lorries, or stationary traffic in rush hour?
Can you easily get in/out of the property when the road is busy?

A house we looked at was just next to a busy A road but the road was cut into an embankment and lined with trees so fairly hidden and this made a huge difference.

[Intel]

Buy the house, knock it down and then re-build it 100 feet further back: you'll then be 115 feet away from the main road

This. If your follow up question is "why would i do this?, it'd cost a fortune" AYSYCOTBAC

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

I wouldn't live next to a busy A road if you paid me, no matter how awesome the house is.

When we were house hunting we looked at a house whose back garden was separated from the A12 by a high line of trees and not much more. Literally a stones throw. You could hear it inside the house and you may as well have forgot about using the garden for anything useful - relaxing, hanging the washing out etc.

[vetran]

used to live in a house 100ft from a moderately busy A road. Garden was sunken at the back and it was reasonably quiet. Still very glad we moved to a cul de sac. Cleaner, quieter & safer.

[DimPrawn]

I wouldn't live next to a busy A road if you paid me, no matter how awesome the house is.

When we were house hunting we looked at a house whose back garden was separated from the A12 by a high line of trees and not much more. Literally a stones throw. You could hear it inside the house and you may as well have forgot about using the garden for anything useful - relaxing, hanging the washing out etc.

Agreed, houses like that should pretty much be free. Location is all that matters, everything else can be changed.

[bobspud]

Suggestions on buying a house that is on an "A" road separated by a slip road and green. So the house is about 10-15 feet away from the main (busy) A road (with the slip road and be green in between the house and the " A" road) The house itself is awesome. The compromise is on the road. How noisy will it be? is it worth the buy? Value of the house is £550,000. Thanks

It's really down to you. But in my time I have met many people that will bitch about road noise and then buy a house on a flood plain without a second thought. Also its amazing how many people that say I wouldn't live next to a road, would love to buy a house by the sea that would suffer from ocean noise 24/7 and will probably suffer from erosion problems eventually leaving the property worthless...

We have lived in a barn on an A road for 14 years and we have found that the answer to traffic noise is staggeringly simple: After the first week or two, it will simply fade into the back ground.

Your brain works on something like 15watts of power so as much as we think we are all powerful, our minds play lots of little tricks like filtering and filling in the gaps for us to avoid diverting power from the main tasks in hand. So with that in mind, As soon as you get on and actually do an activity your brain will simply drown 70% of the noise out so that it can focus on other things.

Of course if you stand staring at the wall thinking about the car that has just gone past you are focusing on the very thing you would normally blot out.

The same behaviour can be demonstrated by anyone that has ever had that cringingly annoying "Do you ever hear a damn word I have said???" argument with their wife. Your brain filters her frequency straight out so that you can conveniently concentrate on whatever is more important at that time. The bastard little organism even adds a "Yes Dear..." reply in at the right point in time to conceal its trickery. All without you even being in the conversation...

Next thing is the actual sound measurements vs perceived noise. I used a sound meter in our house to prove the point when we moved in years ago:

Our fridge and background house noise without any cars is about 30db (that sounds scary doesn't it?) until you realise that the morning chorus of birds at 5am is actually about 45db which is also around the average sound of cars passing our house at 40mph for most of the day. However just turning on the TV or a radio at just below 50% of its power output knocks up a staggering 80-90Db

Also Most roads are not going full pelt 24 hours a day. In fact for us they seem to reflect store opening times so as soon as everything shuts so does the road noise. Christmas and Boxing days are almost no traffic at all.

The upside to being on the road is I can get to places far easier than being stuck down a B road or farm track and have never been snowed in.

Then the balancing question is could you afford the house if it was in the middle of a field with no noise at all?