Issue with M5 widening

[Brian84]

Hi all,

I have a house in Liverpool that backs on to the m5, recently they have completed our section of the m5 widening. They told everyone they will monitor the noise levels and if the noise levels for a property is over 60 decibels they will install double glazed windows to the affected rooms in your house. My next door neighbour and another house in the street have received the new windows installed in their house, so I rang up and to see what was happening with ours and they said we won't be receiving them as the cutoff is 60db and house house came in at 59db. One decibel is nothing, can you even hear 1 decibel.

Anyway I wrote a letter to the bloke In charge of the noise department and also to our local member of parliament. Roads guy wasnt really helpful but our local member was pretty helpful and actually wrote a letter on behalf of us to mr Duncan Gay the roads and traffic minister, he wrote back to us that we do not qualify for the architectural window treatment.

As I think we are treated unfairly should I take this matter further, if so who should I contact. Do you think I'm wasting my time.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Biz]

If I was the government (Ha!) I wouldn't give anything to anyone unless they held the property before the original motorway was built. Is an extra lane really the end of the world? Or are we to assume you just want it without paying for it because others are getting it and the noise itself really isn't an issue.

 

[Scott No Mates]

It is not an 'architectural window treatment' Brian - Double glazing requires the replacement of the entire glazing unit, not the installation of frilly blinds.

There is a cut-off of 60dB, you are at 59 dB - dB is measured on a logarithmic scale so at 59 dB you are experiencing half the noise level of the adjoining property. Have the RMS come out and remeasure the noise levels at different times of the day.

 

[Brian84]

Scott I was just going off what they call it in the letter we all received. They haven't bothered coming out to measure the noise levels yet. They said they will monitor it for a couple of months first, I would have thought monitoring it would have been measuring the noise levels.

Biz- believe it or not the extra lane does bring extra noise as the extra lane is closer to our house. Sure it's not the end of the world but if I can get new windows installed in my house for nothing then why not try and get it.

 

[Sim]

There is a cut-off of 60dB, you are at 59 dB - dB is measured on a logarithmic scale so at 59 dB you are experiencing half the noise level of the adjoining property. Have the RMS come out and remeasure the noise levels at different times of the day.

Actually, logarithmic scales don't work that way - what you are describing is almost exponential, rather than logarithmic.

Decibels use a base 10 logarithm and deal with "orders of magnitude".

They are not an absolute scale, but rather a relative scale and the perception of loudness is very subjective.

Either way, for two largely identical sounds, played in the same atmospheric conditions from the same distance to the same person - if one sound is perceived as twice as loud, this is going to roughly equate to a 10dB difference (an order of magnitude).

So, in reality, a 1dB difference is quite small.

One might argue that being at 59dB and missing out on sound insulation compared to a neighbour measured at 60dB who does get the insulation is not fair - but in reality, 60dB is commonly equated to the sound you would get from a TV in your room at normal listening levels, from a distance of 1m.

This would be outside the home - not inside - even uninsulated windows would drop that down to a much lower level.

The US EPA defines 70dB as being the maximum continuous level of sound before you'll start getting hearing loss or disturbed sleep and such.

However, as we've already covered, the 60dB cutoff allowed for road noise is generally HALF that perceived maximum volume level as 70dB (which is why I assume they chose this figure).

59dB vs 60dB really isn't going to have that much of an impact.

Interestingly, they measure a Vuvuzela horn at 1m as being 120dB, and disturbingly, the US EPA also define 120dB as the volume level at which you are likely to suffer from instantaneous noise-induced hearing loss