Free portal for anybody seeking advice in civil engineering !

[Mike]

Question: I understand your focus may not have anything to do in particular with my question but I have the hunch that none the less you may infact provide a valuable comment.

Ok, I am on vacation in my home overseas and it seems there is a bar/restaurant that has opened that plays lound music up until late and its a plain nuisance.

Since this home is in a 3rd world country really it just gets pointless to bother, not to mention out of the year I spend limited time here. I was wondering whether the following may marginally control the penetration of the sound from the outside.

I was considering putting a tall laminated glass or concrete wall around the perimiter of my home. Wouldn't the sound just reflect if the wall is tall enough? Glass has good acoustic properties and I understand something would have to be put in the concrete alternative like foam or something but how effective would this be by any chance?

If that won't cut it, is there some sort of sound cancellation contraption solution I can buy to silence the outer sound?

Thank you very much for whatever you may comment... frankly I speculate greatly that anyone local can give valuable advise to solution this and really just don't know where to start..

Thank you very much for your time!

[webmaster]

Hello Mike,

Thank you for your interesting question. As I understood from what you have explained, the restaurant is not structurally in connection with your home. This is a good news because you do not have to increase inside wall/slab thickness or use for example cork/fibre glass boards or the alike to prevent sound and vibration to propagate through your structure.

The sound seems to come only from the outside, which is better because it usually can be controlled with the installation of better quality windows (double-glazed), provided your walls are properly built with standard masonry bricks or concrete. I guess these windows will not be easy to find in a developing country so if you have troubles, you may want to have an alternative.

As you probably know from Muslim countries, they use a perimeter concrete wall around each home (as you suggested) which is very much helping to reduce noises from outside apart from protecting their privacy.

The cheapest alternative I guess, if your windows are of standard sizes and low numbers, is to change them with sound-proof windows and check if your house door is sound-proof enough (I guess you have an air conditioning system so you do not have to open your windows at night).

On the contrary, if you have to leave your windows open at night, then I would suggest to build a perimeter wall around your home if nothing else helps. In developing countries, a masonry brick wall should then be the cheapest (height depending on your home storey number, typically 3m) to build compared to reinforced concrete wall, Plexiglas wall or prefabricated walls, mixed walls, etc.

Hope this will help.

Regards

[Mike]

Thank you. I have some pictures of my home on my homepage. I shall send you the url in a pm. Great if you could have a look at it and pm back with a perimeter wall cost estimate. I shall buy you some 'wine' for your efforts.

Cheers
Mike