How to reduce surrounding noise in patio area?
dakota01
13 years ago
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duluthinbloomz4
13 years agoRelated Discussions
Advice from Bay Area landscape experts: highway noise reduction
Comments (18)tinan, I doubt that noise is as easily abated by plantings as you may think. CALTRANS engineers are experts and even they have a hard time abating sound. Sometimes sound-deflecting walls are built only to find the sound, instead of being deflected upwards, goes in unexpected directions and creates headaches for another neighborhood which previously had no problems at all. Land topography has more impact on noise deflection than anything else. If you walk along the Bodega Head trail, at certain sections the ocean noise is thunderous; yet 50' away without any change except for a shift 10' inland and a protruding cliffside edge, the wave noise drops by two-thirds. No trees or level change are involved at all; it is all topographic noise deflection. Take a side path below cliff level and suddenly you can't hear any ocean noise, everything is silent. Certainly trees "en masse" will deflect noise. But you'd have to own a half-acre lot to plant enough trees to mass thickly enough to create a viable deflection wall on a level property. Walk around a freeway underpass, and you'll probably find that in certain spots almost underneath the freeway (it needs to be solid, not the type with separate roadways) the car noises stop. Sometimes they merge into a deep booming noise that is more pressure than noise, a rather odd feeling. All of us live in a geographically hilly area. This means that cell phone reception gives carriers nightmares and that noise from our maze of freeways travels upwards and outwards in a variety of directions, funneled by geography and climate. I can occasionally hear train whistles from the Amtrak lines two miles west - but not always, only at certain times. If sound were a simple thing, I would ALWAYS be able to hear them - the tracks don't move, and neither does my house (unless there's a rupture in the Hayward Fault, LOL). But I can't, even though I know that the trains blow their whistles at the same crossing twenty times a day....See MoreHow to reduce water running across my lawn?
Comments (8)In general you can change the form of the water conveyance through your property as long as you don't change the way it works at the upstream and downstream ends. That is, you could convert the grass to a man-made stream bed, or convert it too a rain garden, or install a drain beneath it, as long as you don't create a condition where water that used to leave the neighbor's yard starts to back up. Similarly, you can't change the location or the amount of water that leaves your yard. For example, you generally can't reroute the water across your yard and release it to the neighbor's yard at a different location that where it goes now unless the nighbor agrees. However, it could take a different path through your yard as long as it ends up in the same place....See MoreHow to cover this area in patio...
Comments (19)self leveling concrete is for 1/4" and less, I believe. if you want to fill that entire spot, you're going to have do the regular stuff. but it won't match what's around it. After pouring, slope it away from the doorway and brush it so it's not slippery. But it's going to look like a giant 'fill-in'. OR, maybe pour it part way and set some brick (or tile or stone) in it (keeping them level w/the surrounding parts). I think visually it would look the best....See MoreHow to dampen/reduce noise of air conditioner inside wall cabinet
Comments (4)The through-the-wall AC certainly came with a front but the owner isn't going to be able to attach it because some duct work was added to the upper-front of the unit to direct the conditioned air upward (there's a grill in the cabinet top in front of the window). If I were the owner I would check whether the unit should operate in a closed cabinet. If not, I'd cut holes in the doors of the required size and cover them with perforated metal (on the inside) to allow air flow and eliminate the need to leave the doors open. To reduce noise, I'd also put the noise-reducing material on the floor below the AC unit, behind the toekick grill. -- not an AC guy...See Moredakota01
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