My latest search for a retirement location has revealed a very attractive but modest home. It’s a “down-sizer” and just what I will need. One potentially big problem is that from the photos I see that the end of the backyard looks to be about 100 feet from a high concrete wall at the adjacent Interstate Highway. Can’t tell for sure and I will investigate in person if my interest grows. It is in a pleasant southern town and by all accounts the neighbor is otherwise “serene.” I’m a fairly noise sensitive guy. I can’t abide noisy neighbors, for example. Would an Interstate highway next to your backyard be a deal-breaker for you as a potential home buyer?
Yes!
It would for me. DH’s mother lived near one when she was old and nearly deaf, and it worked out great.
Where we are, we can hear a faint drone, but it is easily tuned out. Half a mile down the street, where the houses are at a higher elevation compared to the highway, it is almost intolerable. Check it out. There may be a reason it is affordable.
Yes for me, too.
Yes, that’s a deal-breaker, not only because of the noise but because of the air quality.
http://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highways
No way. I had a friend from college who parents house backed up to the LIE (and there was the sound barrier wall.) You couid not entertain outside at all if you wanted to have any kind of conversation. They even had to sound proof several rooms in their home (but not the guest room I was put in once.) Constant road noise 24/7.
Highways are noisy. If you are noise sensitive…this property probably won’t work.
S who is an acoustical engineer, and H who is a civil engineer (for out state’s DOT) agree that the noise barrier walls are essentially useless in actually blocking sound. It would definitely be a deal breaker for me!
It wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me sight unseen. I grew up close to train tracks.
I’m short so the deal breakers for me are a microwave/range hood combo and no table height work space in a kitchen.
I have read the the two top deal breakers are being adjacent to a school and near a water tower.
Power lines is another I would avoid, but no, I wouldn’t live next to a highway. I’d also think about possible highway widening at some future point and how that would affect the property.
I’d definitely live next to a school and even a water tower before a highway.
Location, location, location.
Years ago we had a house 1/4 mile from an interstate highway. The noise didn’t bother me, until the night an accident stopped traffic for an hour and a half. After that, I could not unhear the noise and it made me nuts.
These days we live about a mile from a local highway that I hear sometimes on summer nights. That’s enough distance.
never live behind a strip mall, highway, hospital etc etc…
I guess it depends upon how attractive is the house and area and what is your tolerance level for noise and pollution. If it’s your ticket to an area you love and only house you can afford there then add trees and water features to balance air quality and noise level. Keep air purifying houseplants indoors as well and get good windows, window quality is very important in noisy areas.
That would be at the top of my list for turn-offs when buying a home, tied with high-voltage power lines.
Why do people avoid water towers? Accidental flooding?
I lived close enough to a highway for it to be bothersome, especially in winter when the trees had no leaves. Two blocks closer and it was intolerable. Even where we were, we were too close. If there was an accident and the traffic helicopters were hovering overhead it felt like a small earthquake.
I would live next to a school any day, but not one with a big sports field that had huge lights for night games.
For just a few months, while we were looking for our first house, we lived in an apartment building right off the highway. There were some woods between us and the road, but it was still awful. The constant drone of the trucks was almost unbearable.
The traffic near a lot of schools is a problem in the morning and when school gets out.
I recently read that people who live near highways have deleterious health effects from the pollution. I couldn’t stand the noise.
I wouldn’t want to live close to anything noisy: airports, wind turbines, railroads, etc.
I lived on 2nd Ave in midtown Manhattan and I did get used to the noise - but I was just out of college then and couid sleep through anything. But even 2nd Ave traffic was nothing compared to my friend’s house on the LIE. Never in my life had I heard such non-stop noise.
The other thing you need to remember is that you can never open your windows, either.
Absolutely for me.