Home Improvement → how to reduce outside street noise

Thanks again for all your recent suggestions. I ordered a large 2 inch memory foam which I plan to place inside the window. Meanwhile I have been playing with my sound generator and discovered that the 'rain' option produces a sound rich in low frequencies. When I plugged it into my subwoofer, I got a sound that was very good at masking the street noise. Apparently the outside noise is primarily low frequency. And I didn't have to make it very loud either.

When I had my house in Glendora, we were right up against the freeway. At first, the noise from the vehicles passing by was kind of annoying; but over time it actually became it's own "sound generator" of sorts.

We did end up putting in dual pane vinyl windows and it cut down the noise to probably 10% of what it was before; plus the outside of the home was coated with that hard foam stuff and painted over so it actually absorbed quite a bit of noise itself.

- FM

Not sure what memory foam is going to do unless it's an egg crate shaped foam. The idea behind noise reduction is to trap and bounce the sound around to reduce it. Typically space/air is used to accomplish that. Popping a 2" square piece of foam onto the window might help a very small amount but it's just transferring the sound from the window to the foam without much if any reduction. If you got a 4" egg crate foam now you have air pockets that will trap and reduce the noise. Look at a recording studio or a sound chamber. They are all lined with egg crate looking stuff for that reason.

I'm in the same situation myself. It seems the noise is heard from my windows (they are new single pain cheap crap that the old owners replaced for me). Can someone post some links to new windows I can try?

As mentioned previously

www.soundproofwindows.com

seems to offer a good sound reducing window even though it has to be mounted on the inside. They don't touch the original window.

Are they expensive?

I got a quote from them both before I went with acoustic windows. You can decide for yourself.

"Soundproof" windows (add-on to make an existing window into an acoustical window)
47x30 & 43x30 - $662 each
$210 per window installation
$50 packing per 5 windows
$90 per window shipping
State sales tax
Over $2,000 for the 2 windows

Acoustical windows
47x30 & 43x30 - $584 each
Installation included.
Packing included.
Shipping included.
State sales tax
Just under $1,200 for the two windows.

Both windows have the same soundproof rating average pretty much. Also the lead time on the 'soundproof' windows was 5-8 weeks while the acoustic windows were 4-6 weeks. I'd rather get a complete solution for less money then a retro fit solution for more money. Just my 2 cents.

I forgot to mention you get zero warranty with the 'soundproof' add-on windows. You will get a 7-12 year warranty on acoustical windows. Most likely you will increase your r-value and get an energy-star rating with acoustical windows over the retro fit 'soundproof' add-on windows as well. If there is a tax incentive in 2012 the 'soundproof' windows won't qualify. The acoustic windows will qualify for the tax incentive. We got $200 off the acoustic windows last year in tax incentives making the acoustic about 1/2 the price of the 'soundproof' add-on windows.

$600 seems like a lot for one window. Would I be better off going to Home Depot and getting a $200 window and having someone install it for $50?

If you want a window yes. If you want to reduce noise a double or even triple pane window isn't going to do anything much. They are about 24-28 STC rating at best. You don't start getting into the noise reduction category until you hit 35-38 STC. An acoustic window is 40-48 STC. On the plus side if you have really bad windows now the STC might be like 16-18 so you might notice a very small improvement with new 24-28 STC windows.

You might be able to get away with something like this.
»www.homedepot.com/Doors- ··· Id=10051