Living on main road

I got used to it but we are well-back from it. It was very hard at first as we sleep with the window open.
My daughter just moved into a house on a main road. She says it's taken her 3 weeks not to notice.
Hers is busier than ours but also set back and behind trees.

*her's

Oops! Her's

Now it looks wrong!

My daughter found a similar house not on a main road that was so much more expensive.
They decided it was worth it for the massive saving, had a larger plot and as the children will obviously play in the back garden they had no worries about safety.

I don't like it when people come and go and slam car doors - but that could really happen anywhere I suppose.

My mantra if/when bungalow hunting is that it should not be on a busy road however we’ll set back it is, or near a water course.
I like my windows open in warm weather and throughout the year, always at night. I don’t think I could ever get used to traffic noise, especially at night. Think of the BikeBoy hammering his Harley Davidson home at 0200! The rumble of a diesel bus or lorry at 0630. No thanks.
Given climate change I think rising water & the anxiety that would bring, would send me to an early grave!
Think carefully, don’t act in haste and what about the resale value if you have to sell in future years? No, not for me!

People say they do get used to noise. When we bought our first house, we were amazed that houses alongside the East Coast Mainline had to have their floors strengthened, but were and still are popular. One DD used to live near the Newcastle Metro line and hardly noticed it. DD2 now lives under the flightpath for Newcastle airport - it’s been so quiet during Lockdown, she’s going to have to get used to it again, but it doesn’t bother her, although I’m stupidly excited to see planes flying so low! I’m on a main road with a 50mph limit - it’s noisier on certain days at certain times, but I’ve a water feature which ‘deadens’ some of the noise. I’d be more concerned with how the lay by is used. Might lorries park up or caravans stay overnight? Groups of cars meeting for fast food and leaving litter? A similar area I know of has had CCTV installed to try to catch fly tippers.

However, if the house ticks all the boxes?? Early days though, if you’ve just started viewing.

Our first house was on a main road with buses going by from around 6am. They actually caused the house to shake, and we vowed never to live on a busy road again. Even in the back garden, we could still hear the traffic. We stood it for 4 years. As you don't sound in a hurry to move, why not view a few more properties and hopefully something that ticks all boxes, including being on a quieter road, will come up.

If in doubt I’d say do nowt.
In other words don’t buy it. Something will be just right, just needs patience.

We lived on the A41 for 25 years and think it may have affected our lungs.

We had a rail track at the bottom of our garden years ago, hardly noticed the noise after a few weeks. We are not on a main road but can hear the traffic on the A road a mile away. It’s hard to avoid noise in a town.

Nonogran not my business of course, but if you like windows open a bungalow might not be the safest idea ( unless it’s been extended upstairs).

In our last house the garden backed onto a main road.We lived there for seven years and never got used to the traffic noise or the dust it created.

We used to live set back off a main road and only really noticed the odd lunatic on a motorbike. Then we moved to the country and at first found it hard to sleep as it was so quiet!

Our last house was on the main route to the Welsh valleys and no we never got used to it. We were there for 18 years. We then moved to a bungalow on a very quiet road, it took a while to get used to hearing nothing but my tinnitus.

Gosh - I would hate that! Not just the noise, but also the fumes - yuk!

One of my houses was next to a mainline into London, the other situated on a main road. Did take a few weeks but soon got used to the noise. Still not for everyone, and not sure I would want it now.

We moved to a house that is on a side road off the main road we don't get a lot of passing traffic but the ones we do get we hear especially in the hot weather having the windows open (but lately since covid started a lot of noisy speeding delivery vans) we have put a wall up to buffer the noise but this hasn't helped much and has gradually started slowly annoying me and is making me unsettled please really think about the road as we we're okay at first but then we began to hear it more not get used to it if you can hear it in the garden you will at sometimes in the house and it will effect your health

Growing up in the city next to a trunk road means I don’t mind traffic noise at all. In fact I can’t sleep in dead silence and have the radio on low all night.
When abroad, my husband couldn’t sleep if there was a nearby disco, but it made no difference to me.

I live on the busy main road through my town Never bothered me I don’t notice it or if I do it goes over my head It’s very convenient as I have a bus stop into town just opposite my house literally round the corner is the beach and sea and a fair number of little independent shops nearby so all good for me as I don’t have a car
When I lived in the tropics I thought I would never sleep again when I heard the loud tree beetles at night within a few days I was saying what tree beetles !
Your head wipes it out, well mine does anyway

I lived on the edge of a rural village and when cars and vans came in at speed they would make the house shake. It was the woomph of the displaced air hitting the buildings on either side. We had our share of motorbike noise too. And as for the tractors!

Traffic noise is part of life I’m afraid. And we all love our cars.

I also lived on a main road in the London suburbs. Actually rush hours were busy but the rest of the day and the night wasn’t too bad. And we got a massive 250ft garden backing onto a park.

We wouldn’t have chosen a main road if we had unlimited funds but it was a big house and garden there or a smaller one on a quieter road. But perhaps you can afford both?

I hate traffic noise, but our Best Man had a house just under the main flight path at Heathrow. Jets looking as though they were about to land in the garden, couldn't hear yourself talk when they were going over, heavy kerosene smell and black smuts all over the washing. It has to be quiet for me, one of the first things on the agenda when choosing a house.

Our last house was sideways on to a road that was busy in the rush hour and much less busy outside the rush hour. It was a large very solidly built victorian semi and we didn't really notice the noise because the house had 13 inch thick brick walls and just absorbed the noise. The garden wrapped round three sides of the house, but we moved there as DC both went off to secondary school and developed a whole lot of outside interests and friends who they could walk or bus to visit. It was about the time I went back to work full time and then started commuting to London, so we were all so busy with work, school and outside interests, we did not use the garden much. But with a thick conifer hedge down the side, it was not too noisy at weekends. That was 40 years ago

25 years ago, we moved to our current home and now live 100 yards from the main Bristol to London railway line, with a thick band of forest sized trees between us and the railway.

The first week the three heavy aggregate trains coming up every night from Somerset woke us up, the second week we just incorprated the noise into our dreams. The third week onwards we just slept through them.

Since moving here the line has been completely relaid, ballast, sleepers and continuous rail , which reduced the noise considerably and now the line has been electrified, no more diesel engines, just electric trains, and we can now barely hear them, even in the garden.

Being prepared to live with first the road and until recently the trains, we have been able to buy much bigger and nicer houses than we could have if we had wanted complete tranquility

When we lived in London we had train lines {behind a wooden fence} about 5 meters from the front door and a little further away from the back of the building, Our maisonette was on the 2nd/top floor of the small block. We were not bothered by noise from the busy train lines. Just hearing a gentle hum that never kept us awake, even though only the kitchen window was double glazed. Now we are back up North in a rural area but fear the risk of accidents from the main road in front of our house, rather than the noise as we are double glazed.

Luckygirl

Gosh - I would hate that! Not just the noise, but also the fumes - yuk!

There are plenty of things to consider in terms of polution not just "fumes" though those were a big thing in our decision making before we moved here.
Yes, it is a main road, but not like a London main road, or a LA freeway!

This may help:
We used a tool like this before we moved here.
naei.beis.gov.uk/emissionsapp/