[Closed] Noise reducing windows

I've recently replaced my old UPVC windows with aluminium variants but also used a membrane, along with air tightness foam and compriband tape during the install.
Would definitely recommend with whatever windows you go for to use the membrane, compriband and air tightness foam as I feel that's made the biggest difference reduced heat loss and reduce noise.

Triple glazing is much quieter ime.

Yep triple glazed or get an acoustic laminate glass

Laminate glass. I think tripple is more for thermal improvements

We have standard 2 year old eurocell type double glazing .
I did remark to the wife yesterday that I felt like Ted Moult, coming inside from being out in a hurricane to near silence.
They replaced 20+ year old double glazed that were nowhere near as efficient

AIUI triple glazing is more for noise than thermal.

Triple glazing is for thermal, acoustic laminate for noise.

Pilkington optiphon or similar, if you have trickle vents make sure they are acoustic trickle vents.

Acoustic units have different (and non common factored) thicknesses of glass.

A gas trapped in a sealed units is a great acoustic barrier when the bounding layers have different resonation frequencies.

I should really replace mine but kkeep putting it off!

You can get your noise levels tested so as to use the best combination of glass thickness. Two different thickness panes will be better than standard triple glazing. The varying glass thickness stops different wavelengths of noise!

The varying glass thickness stops different wavelengths of noise!

I'm pretty sure they don't, they just don't vibrate in sympathy with each other so the inner pane doesn't copy the outers.

I’m pretty sure they don’t, they just don’t vibrate in sympathy with each other so the inner pane doesn’t copy the outers.

Ergo, they stop the transmission of noise.

Teehee I said ergo. But you’ve described exactly how they stop the transmission of sound.
If the outer pane is vibrating (due to sound) and the inner pane refuses to cooperate, that’s the sound transmission stopped (reduced in reality).

Edit: oh facepalm. I’ve totally misread your post. Yes. You’ve described it correctly and I’ve repeated you.

As others have already said, a double glazed unit with differing thickness laminated glass panes to the outer and inner leaf will provide the best performance. To get the absolute best, use acoustic interlayers in the laminate, a larger than normal unit cavity (24mm rather than 16mm) and if you want to go all out, differing glass ply thicknesses in each laminate.

However, above a certain value, the loss through the window frame itself reduces the overall performance so you need to match a high acoustic performance glass to a high performance frame and also need to consider the interface around the frame. As above, a decent sealing detail around the frame will also help.

Of course then you'll be told you need trickle vents in the window and it'll all be for nothing as they'll let the noise in 🙂 Then you'll start looking at acoustic trickle vents 🙂

You could do worse than look at a timber composite window system as the mass of the timber frames tends to mean the frame losses are reasonable, pick a double laminate glazing unit, ideally with different pane thickness inside and out, and ensure they're fitted with an external seal, internal membrane and something in-between (foam or dense mineral wool). Probably the best mid to upper range option before spending silly money.

We were advised against triple glazing for noise reduction and to go for the different thickness glass in the inner and outer panes as described above. I think ours are laminated glass on the outside and toughened on the inside. It works very well; for example, when there was a fire across the road and several fire engines turned up we didn't hear anything and only knew about it when the neighbours rang us. But as slackman99 says they don't help in the summer when you need the windows open.