fjordgard said:
Looks like this discussion is going to be in private. Hopefully we hear some public details soon!
Click to expand...
And... this was deleted from the agenda this morning, so not sure what is going on there. There was an awkward exchange - Councillor Stevenson proposed the deletion of the agenda item, Councillor Cartmell said something about "I understood we were going to talk about the deletion at the meeting", then they just voted to delete the item and moved it.
 
Sorry for the a bit off topic question, but for someone who suffers really bad misophony, how is living in one of a townhouses like these? This would be my only reason to prefer a detached house.
 
Danny Perea said:
Sorry for the a bit off topic question, but for someone who suffers really bad misophony, how is living in one of a townhouses like these? This would be my only reason to prefer a detached house.
Click to expand...
Okay, so we have renters in our basement, and the units next to us have renters in their garage suites and basement suites. One also has renters in the main unit. The other has been a flurry of activity as they prepare for the owners to move into the main suite.

I don't really hear them the overwhelming amount of the time. The rare exceptions are things like when our renters in the basement suite had a gathering for their family and there was an extremely energetic child who was VERY excited and really using her vocal chords, and a few times when I suspect pictures were being hung on the adjacent walls. These were detectable in a very muffled fashion. In my previous house, which I thought of as fairly quiet, I would routinely experience more noise from vehicles and vehicle sound systems from the parking lot next door. There was also more neighbour noise at my folks' place out in Bon Accord whenever the neighbours had gatherings.

This is in an Encore freehold townhouse, and I don't really have experience with the others. As I understand it, these things have a pretty intense "firewall" between them.
 
Last edited:
Danny Perea said:
Sorry for the a bit off topic question, but for someone who suffers really bad misophony, how is living in one of a townhouses like these? This would be my only reason to prefer a detached house.
Click to expand...
"Neighbor noise" drives me absolutely insane, and I live in a row of townhomes with secondary suites. So a family to the left, right, and below.

I would say I hear anything from the neighboring units once every two weeks. Modern townhomes are designed to be as sound-isolating as possible, and it absolutely works. I'm now moving to a vintage apartment and I'm dreading the amount of vibration conduction that the old stick-build apartments have, so I'm buying a bunch of these sound-isolating panels.
 
archited said:
There are ways to mitigate sound transmission completely. I highly doubt that that is happening in these stick-framed monstrosities.
Click to expand...
I'm not an architect, how can sound be completely mitigated? Obviously concrete walls would do the trick, but I'm curious what you mean.

Also I would hardly call the Blatchford townhomes "monstrosities", to each their own but I think they're quite nice.
 
No -- on the contrary -- I think Blatchford is a pronounced exception to what is going on in the rest of the city. Generally the Architecture and the care for individual privacy is well considered in Blatchford and a few select other locations such as Stadium Yards.
Re Sound isolation -- all insulation products have an STC rating (Sound Transmission Class) and if one can get a material that has an STC rating above 40 and if it is installed on a Party Wall that features staggered stud construction then you can have a sound-proof wall. On floor/ceiling construction if you also employ sound isolation clips combined with a material that has a high STC rating, same result. I was forced many years ago to learn acoustic properties and sound isolation when I designed 2 recording studios in Edmonton and then more recently Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles. Some people like sound and do not care if it falls under the heading of "noise". I just finished a residence in Long Island, New York, where the owner did not want 1. to hear any sound from an exterior source and 2. did not want sound translating through the floor from living areas to upstairs bedrooms. When finished we did the "scream" test and not a single note -- faint or otherwise -- was heard from outside in the upstairs bedroom areas and the "floor-stomping test" did not translate from living areas to bedrooms and vise versa. Concrete in an appropriate thickness can also achieve a good sound rating.
 
archited said:
No -- on the contrary -- I think Blatchford is a pronounced exception to what is going on in the rest of the city. Generally the Architecture and the care for individual privacy is well considered in Blatchford and a few select other locations such as Stadium Yards.
Re Sound isolation -- all insulation products have an STC rating (Sound Transmission Class) and if one can get a material that has an STC rating above 40 and if it is installed on a Party Wall that features staggered stud construction then you can have a sound-proof wall. On floor/ceiling construction if you also employ sound isolation clips combined with a material that has a high STC rating, same result. I was forced many years ago to learn acoustic properties and sound isolation when I designed 2 recording studios in Edmonton and then more recently Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles. Some people like sound and do not care if it falls under the heading of "noise". I just finished a residence in Long Island, New York, where the owner did not want 1. to hear any sound from an exterior source and 2. did not want sound translating through the floor from living areas to upstairs bedrooms. When finished we did the "scream" test and not a single note -- faint or otherwise -- was heard from outside in the upstairs bedroom areas and the "floor-stomping test" did not translate from living areas to bedrooms and vise versa. Concrete in an appropriate thickness can also achieve a good sound rating.
Click to expand...
Interesting, do you know of retrofit options that could achieve comparable results? Would love to soundproof the place I'm headed to, but I'm fairly resigned to hanging up acoustic paneling and hoping for the best.
 
archited said:
Acoustic paneling won't help much. Do you own or are you renting? Do you want all rooms sound-proofed or just one or two?
Click to expand...
Own, but obviously the damage I can do to the insulation/structure is limited since condo ownership is generally "paint to paint".

Only a couple rooms are important to have sound isolation (living room for entertaining, bedroom for sleeping).
 
policyenthusiast said:
"Neighbor noise" drives me absolutely insane, and I live in a row of townhomes with secondary suites. So a family to the left, right, and below.

I would say I hear anything from the neighboring units once every two weeks. Modern townhomes are designed to be as sound-isolating as possible, and it absolutely works. I'm now moving to a vintage apartment and I'm dreading the amount of vibration conduction that the old stick-build apartments have, so I'm buying a bunch of these sound-isolating panels.
Click to expand...
I just saw these in Costco, supposedly have sound isolation properties.
 

Attachments

  • 87670c39-a353-433b-bfca-244df9a3f59f.jpeg
    87670c39-a353-433b-bfca-244df9a3f59f.jpeg
    239.8 KB · Views: 10
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top