Noise in the ‘Hood? Some Ways to Reduce It : Improvements: You can soundproof your home by paying special attention to doors and windows.

Are you tired of hearing your children play in the family room while you try to read quietly in the bedroom? Are you ready for earplugs so you can sleep through the sound of traffic that wasn’t near your house when you bought it 10 years ago?

Join the club.

If you’re not already aware of it, Orange County has become noisier as more people have moved in, and developers have created living spaces that skimpier on soundproofing to make housing more affordable.

Unwanted noise is a fact of life anywhere, but in metropolitan areas, there’s often no choice but to accept it.

However, there are some relatively easy steps you can take to reduce sound pollution.

While you may have thought you were far enough away from busy streets and highways when you bought your home, you may now wake up some mornings thinking you’re living in the center divider.

“As freeways become more and more crowded, you find trucks using arterial roads to get where they need to be, and suddenly you go from what was once a tolerable noise level to one that’s unacceptable,” says John Van Houten of Van Houten & Associates, an acoustical engineering firm in Orange.

Traffic noise can be louder or quieter, depending on the time of day and atmospheric conditions. “You may be 500 feet from the road and in the morning you might barely hear the cars, while a few hours later it can turn into a mild roar,” Van Houten says.

Your home would probably have great sound resistance--if it didn’t have doors or windows. These are the weak links through which most outdoor noise problems enter.

“A conventional window has a rating of about 22 on a sound transmission scale,” says Van Houten. “You’ll need to increase that number to about 32 to notice a significant difference.”

To get that kind of improvement, you may need special sound-rated double-paned windows. The usual double-paned window has a 1/4-inch air space that works adequately at insulating the home from outside temperatures, but doesn’t work as well as a barrier to noise. Because of their size, modifications may need to be made to the window jamb. This is especially true in the case of upstairs windows, which are required by building codes to slide or crank open.

You could also get some minor improvement in sound control by having windows glazed to make them thicker.

“Depending on your window frame, you could increase the window thickness to 1/2-inch,” says Van Houten. “You could reduce the amount of noise coming in by about 3 to 4 decibels, which is not significant, but you might notice a difference.”

Another option is to install a “quiet window.” This is a laminated sheet of glass in a PVC frame that fits on the inside of the window jamb. It gives you a good-sized air space between the glass and helps protect against outside noise and weather.

“The plastic frame can’t be painted,” says Lori Green-Hayes of Green’s Discount Glass in Garden Grove. “However, it comes in either white or tan, which are neutral colors for most homes.”

The problem with doors are doorways, which usually don’t have enough weatherstripping to seal out sound. If your entry door has a mail slot, you may consider removing it and filling in the gap.

“To check your door, try closing it on a piece of paper and pulling (the paper) out,” says Van Houten. “If it pulls out easily, you need to check the weatherstripping.”

You also may benefit from building a wall that shields your home from the source of the noise. This is often done when a freeway is near a home, and it can effectively deflect road noise. However, check with your city building department. Aesthetics and zoning laws could prevent a wall from being erected on your property.

When noise is created inside the home, it’s somewhat harder to muffle. The best way to start indoor noise abatement is to take an inventory of the offending noises and see if you can stop them at the source.

“There are many simple precautions to take that are almost too easy,” says Gordon Bricken of Gordon Bricken & Associates, an acoustical consulting firm in Santa Ana. “If someone in the home likes to do noisy work in the garage, make sure the door leading to it is closed and properly insulated. Most garages are also unfinished, and by finishing it, you’ll be insulating its walls and getting more noise reduction.”

Offensive appliances, such as a garbage disposal, can be replaced with new, quieter models, or you may be able to shush your older disposal yourself.

“If you can fit some sort of box or bucket around it, you may notice a significant noise reduction,” says Bricken. “That’s basically what the quieter disposals have, a plastic container around the disposal with insulation to contain excess noise.”

If your goal is to stop noise in the children’s playroom or a family room from grating on the nerves of others in the house, your solutions may be limited.

“A lot of people try folk remedies that don’t necessarily work well,” says Bricken. “Using corkboard on the walls is a favorite, since it’s thought that this will absorb noise, but you’re not going to reduce much with that. Make sure the room’s fully carpeted, since that will muffle some of the noise, and work on sealing the door to eliminate cracks.”

If you’re bothered by the sound of people walking above you in a two-story home or townhouse, you may have to prepare for a big remodeling job, or plug your ears.

“This requires a major structural undertaking,” says Bricken. “If the upstairs rooms are carpeted and you’re still having a problem, you’ll have to modify the ceiling so it’s not directly connected to the joists, or create a false ceiling below the real one.”

If the simple sound remedies you’ve tried aren’t getting anywhere and you can’t afford a major noise abatement project, it may be time to consider the ultimate solution--move.

“I always advise people that moving should be looked at as a way to beat the problem,” says Van Houten. “Unwanted noise has a tendency to feed on itself. As people become agitated about a noise, they hear it more and more and they pay attention to it. A lot of time, it’s just not worth the effort to try and fix it.”