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What improvements does your house need? Think everything from heating and insulation to manufacturing please?

We urgently need advice on insulation of house from frequencies 16 to 16000 Hz, please help!?

  • We are asking everybody who has knowledge to advise us on insulation of our house or building a device to reflect the noise that is coming to our house. We are suffering for over a year from this and will appreciate every effort of yours to help us. . The noise in our detached house during the nights is so high, that we cannot sleep or do anything, our ears are in pain, our heads as well, my husband is loosing his eye sight and me as well, we are experiencing the legs cramps and memory loss and we are losing our abilities to make decisions, our bodies became dis-formed, the muscles lost their strength and now are weak. We are constantly feel tired, and want to sleep. The noise started on September 2009, before that for a few years our house was very quiet. The noise is containing usually different sounds- like electrical machine is working or like a water pump, like whistle, like voices on the radio but cannot recognize the words,and many other voices.Often it sounds like a mess of sounds..In 2009 the acoustic company measured it at 11:30 morning (this time we can hardy hear the noise in the house) and asked us to switch off the gas boiler, electricity, water, telephone, everything, after that they measured they told us that the level of ultrasound is too high(may be I mistaken but they mentioned 50 Db), then they sent us the report that we have on the frequencies 16 to 16000 Hz from 37 to 20 decibels accordingly, but they did not look for the source of it and advised us to move house as soon as possible, telling us that no insulation created yet to stop these irritating noise, but they stated that there is no guarantee that other place will be less noisier. They avoided to explain to us what kind of sounds they measured in our house- may be some of you are able to explain this to us, please.During the nights these noises are much, much louder even when everything is still switched off, but nobody want to measure it during the night. This noise is CONSTANT 24 hours per day, and never stopped for over a year, we looked everywhere in the house and around the house, but cannot deduct where it's coming from. We can hear it during the nights on the streets as well. We borrowed a simple device and noticed that the highest level is on our corrugated asbestos roof,during the day time 96 decibels on level C fon, and the lowest on the wooden floor of the rooms , 40-73Db. For comparison, 104 decibels are coming from our electrical sockets and 64 is on the satellite dish itself and 104 is coming from the wires that connected to the satellite dish, but inside the attic these numbers are lower- only 74Db, the chimney is only 64 DB.Our ceiling is made of concrete panels with halls inside, the walls of silicate bricks, the foundation of concrete blocks. We spoke to the electricity, water and gas and telephone companies, and all of them assured us that nothing was built or changed since 2009.We even disconnected our local radio wires, but noise is still here.. In our underground cellar the ceiling is 52Db and the floor is 32Db- day time.In our small sauna it was 36Db, but all sauna is covered with natural 1cm wooden panels.Today, while looking for insulation materials, my husband came to conclusion that no one company is advising to use wood for insulation, and I accidentally found the web-sites where the noise is just like we hear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoFPe4XCRW0&feature=related Homemade 1 million volts Tesla Coil (2 of 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4kXgDBFhw&feature=related Tesla cage of death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZJPd02woLk&feature=related VACUUM TUBE TESLA COIL http://tesladownunder.com/ We are looking if somebody who has appropriate knowledge and can advise us on insulation materials for our house, please. Please, share your knowledge with us and save our lives.Thank you and thanks to Yahoo.Answers.

  • Answer:

    Why are you still living in that house. If your health is that threatened, you should have moved out years ago. Sound of that level cannot be insulated against. You have to find the source of the sound. If it's outside the house, it should be louder outside than inside. Or possibly it's under the house or the street. But move out first. Then get the power company and your local government involved. If the sound is constant, it should be easy to track down. .

Tina at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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I disagree with Xtama Red on this point: Ultra sound (16,000-40,000 Hz) is above the range of human hearing and you wouldn't be hearing it. It also *is* blocked by normal outer wall insulation. The frequencies you cite (16-16,000) are in the audible range. Now: The low frequencies (about 16 - 500) easily pass through outer walls. I frequently have a neighbor who drives past with his auto sound system cranked up with a sub woofer turned way up...boom, boom, boom to the beat of the music. If the levels of noise you are measuring are really there, I agree that you have waited too long to get out. Sound above 100 dB is harmful to your ears for more than a few seconds. 100 dB is ear splitting. I couldn't stand that for even one minute. I can not even imagine a plausable reason for this kind of a noise (100 dB) coming from a power outlet as well as the Dish "wires". Wires do not have the ability to emit noise at that level - if they did, you would be able to feel the vibration and *see* them vibrating. I seriously wonder if this "simple device" is correctly reading the *sound* levels. Radio shack used to sell a "sound Pressure Level" (SPL) meter. The way you describe this, one logical (but not reasonable) conclusion is that it appears your home has one of these Tesla coils inside somewhere or right outside. In addition, if it *is* that loud, just about anyone should be able to locate the source. This has to be something very VERY ** V E R Y ** obvious...(if this isn't a troll)

Steve N.

This sounds more like a medical condition than a sonic engineering problem. However, considering that both of you are hearing the noise it is unlikely that two people simultaneously developed the same medical problem. Regardless, a trip to the doctor is a hell of a lot cheaper than a full house insulation, it could be a type of mold which both of you have been exposed to and that's what's causing the audible distubances. However, I'm going to assume that the noise you are hearing is legitimate. Ultrasound is sound which is in excess of 20,000Hz, so a report detailing 16-16000 is not going to show it. The terrible thing about ultrasound is, it goes right through normal insulation. The best thing you can do is reflect it or absorb it. The easiest way to stop ultrasound is using water, the water will absorb ultrasound and it will be converted to molecular vibrations which is then converted to heating of the water. Reflection is also possible but not widely used. There is another way to stop ultrasound, phase cancelling. It is a technology used in noise cancelling headphones and it may reduce the ultrasound intensity by 50% or more. However, in order for this to work you need an exact frequency. It basically involves a sensor which detects the frequency and then a large piezoelectric speaker which can emit a phase cancelling ultrasonic noise which will cancel out the noise that you are hearing. I don't know where the noise is coming from, but it sounds like some sort of magnetron which is malfunctioning. Could be a faulty transformer or microwave, maybe a shorted out wire which is sparking and emitting ultrasound noise. EDIT: Ultrasound is audible as long as it is high enough in amplitude and not excessively high in frequency (under 30kHz). However, eventually your ears will be permanently damaged by high amplitude ultrasound and will not be able to hear it anymore, but the health effects may still be present.

Xtama Red

This sounds more like a medical condition than a sonic engineering problem. However, considering that both of you are hearing the noise it is unlikely that two people simultaneously developed the same medical problem. Regardless, a trip to the doctor is a hell of a lot cheaper than a full house insulation, it could be a type of mold which both of you have been exposed to and that's what's causing the audible distubances. However, I'm going to assume that the noise you are hearing is legitimate. Ultrasound is sound which is in excess of 20,000Hz, so a report detailing 16-16000 is not going to show it. The terrible thing about ultrasound is, it goes right through normal insulation. The best thing you can do is reflect it or absorb it. The easiest way to stop ultrasound is using water, the water will absorb ultrasound and it will be converted to molecular vibrations which is then converted to heating of the water. Reflection is also possible but not widely used. There is another way to stop ultrasound, phase cancelling. It is a technology used in noise cancelling headphones and it may reduce the ultrasound intensity by 50% or more. However, in order for this to work you need an exact frequency. It basically involves a sensor which detects the frequency and then a large piezoelectric speaker which can emit a phase cancelling ultrasonic noise which will cancel out the noise that you are hearing. I don't know where the noise is coming from, but it sounds like some sort of magnetron which is malfunctioning. Could be a faulty transformer or microwave, maybe a shorted out wire which is sparking and emitting ultrasound noise. EDIT: Ultrasound is audible as long as it is high enough in amplitude and not excessively high in frequency (under 30kHz). However, eventually your ears will be permanently damaged by high amplitude ultrasound and will not be able to hear it anymore, but the health effects may still be present.

Xtama Red

I disagree with Xtama Red on this point: Ultra sound (16,000-40,000 Hz) is above the range of human hearing and you wouldn't be hearing it. It also *is* blocked by normal outer wall insulation. The frequencies you cite (16-16,000) are in the audible range. Now: The low frequencies (about 16 - 500) easily pass through outer walls. I frequently have a neighbor who drives past with his auto sound system cranked up with a sub woofer turned way up...boom, boom, boom to the beat of the music. If the levels of noise you are measuring are really there, I agree that you have waited too long to get out. Sound above 100 dB is harmful to your ears for more than a few seconds. 100 dB is ear splitting. I couldn't stand that for even one minute. I can not even imagine a plausable reason for this kind of a noise (100 dB) coming from a power outlet as well as the Dish "wires". Wires do not have the ability to emit noise at that level - if they did, you would be able to feel the vibration and *see* them vibrating. I seriously wonder if this "simple device" is correctly reading the *sound* levels. Radio shack used to sell a "sound Pressure Level" (SPL) meter. The way you describe this, one logical (but not reasonable) conclusion is that it appears your home has one of these Tesla coils inside somewhere or right outside. In addition, if it *is* that loud, just about anyone should be able to locate the source. This has to be something very VERY ** V E R Y ** obvious...(if this isn't a troll)

Steve N.

Why are you still living in that house. If your health is that threatened, you should have moved out years ago. Sound of that level cannot be insulated against. You have to find the source of the sound. If it's outside the house, it should be louder outside than inside. Or possibly it's under the house or the street. But move out first. Then get the power company and your local government involved. If the sound is constant, it should be easy to track down. .

billruss...

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