"Hoodoo" wrote in message
...
Hello,
I'm thinking of buying a house that is about a quarter of a mile from a
noisy bypass (A41) - is there any effective way of reducing the noise by
planting/building a wall etc?
I've heard that a solid, dense structure such as a wall is the best
olution - has anybody tried this? The sound is mainly mid frequencies,
with the occasional low-frequency rumble from lorries, if that makes any
difference. Many thanks for any help.



Go for a walled garden as pretty much already advised. The mass of the wall
will reflect most of the incident sound. Some will diffract over the top,
the lower the frequency of the noise the more it wil diffract. It's all to
do with the size of the obstacle to the wavelength of the sound. A wave of
length similar to or larger than the obstacle it encounters will bend around
it, so a six foot wall will not attenuate noise below 170Hz very much.

Dense vegetation will partially reflect and partially absorb sound but it
has to be pretty extensive to do that. Who knows what the exact results
would be.

Andy