Why aren’t our homes suitable for older or disabled people?

Good sound insulation is surprisingly easy and cheap to achieve, but not so simple if you need to retro-fit. Just using a double layer of plasterboard (c. £7 per sheet) on a stud wall can reduce noise transmission by about 9dB – perceived as a 45% noise reduction. It’s not so much the extra thickness, but the near doubling of the wall mass that reduces the sound transmission. Why more DIYers don’t employ this trick, I don’t know. Commercial housebuilders are just tight and would rather waste money on carpets and furnishings for the showhome.

More effective solutions require rooms to be de-coupled with a small gap or break, e.g. staggered wall studs or steel handers and fibreglass infill, so that direct sound transmission is reduced and sound through the void is muffled. Again, the materials are cheap if you can do it yourself or as part of a new build, but if a room is small to begin with, you probably can’t afford to lose the space.

You are correct @wavechange! But then radiators are most often installed on outside walls under windows. The exterior wall itself is not a major source of noise compared to the window openings and increasing the wall thickness requires the window reveals to be refinished. Probably not worth doing.

The double plasterboard/double wall works best to reduce internal noise, e.g. between adjacent bedrooms and bathrooms, or party walls It is really important to seal any air gaps around the edges, electrical wall plates, skirting boards, and so on, but ordinary acrylic decorator filler is fine.

I only mention this because some “specialist” firms seem to charge excessive amounts for sound-deadening pads, soundproofing paint (yeah, right!), etc., when all you really need can be found at your local DIY shed or builders merchant, at much less cost.

Hi Crusader
I understand the disability that extreme sensory processing difficulties can bring. Nowadays children are more likely to be given accommodations for such sensitivities. They may also be further assessed for autism spectrum disorders/neurodiversity as extreme sensory sensitivities and autism go hand in hand. Lots of adults are getting a late diagnosis these days and can then access some (not many) services/accommodations. A screening in North Carolina and N Ireland came up with a figure that @20% of the population have an autism spectrum disorder. It’s not just the ”rainman”/media image portrayed. It is usually characterised by extreme sensory sensitivities/ communication differences eg social activities may not be important, may be highly skilled with very focussed interests and no desire for smalltalk or chatting about other things/ preference for things done in a routine/ may be highly organised or the extreme opposite where executive functioning/planning is difficult. I could be of course completely in the wrong but I know lots of adults in highly skilled technical jobs who received a late diagnosis and it helped reframe a lot about their lives.

You’re not wrong about difficulty in organising stuff. I have absolutely MAJOR problems trying to do anything, no matter how trivial, in anything like an organised manner, and usually fail appallingly because my useless head just won’t work and vital things which would be so obvious to the majority are far too often withheld from me until it’s far too late and the dwp have such a major problem understanding and accepting such a thing. They still think disability is all white sticks and wheelchairs, and depression and anxiety etc. and severe cognitive disorders etc. but have absolutely no understanding of anyone like me and instead just ignorantly and persistently contradict me. Since when did they know my life better than I do?! So I took them to tribunal and thrashed them and humiliated their representative in front of the tribunal judge and shut him up.

Unfortunately really effective soundproofing is not that simple, and it’s not just radiators that might get in the way. With some terraced houses like mine there’s also the fireplace and chimney breast at the party wall which is impractical to remove, and ordinary plasterboard and insulation etc. doesn’t really work, it needs specialist materials and they must be very professionally fitted and the entire party wall has to be done, right up to the apex of the roof, and in between floors and ceilings and in some homes right down below the floor as well. And that’s hugely expensive and impractical if the chimney breasts are on that side, and even if you could do the whole job it would only achieve some degree of reduction of noise, and some noises are far more difficult to block out than others. And I don’t think anything will drown out anyone slamming heavy doors or really loud booming dogs or pounding bass, especially if you’ve got a rock band practicing next door with all their big amplifiers. And in some terraces there’s no complete wall between roof spaces. So if a home is going to be properly sound proof it really needs to be detached and specially designed and built for it.