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Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

washingtonpost.com

111–120 of 214 posts

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the pool analogy is a bit absurd, but similar things can and do happen. for example, if your private driveway connects two public roads and you don't actively prevent the public from exploiting that connectivity, eventually it becomes a public right of way and you lose the legal ability to stop people from using it. > If we lived by that logic, places would steadily become worse since complaints would only be valid i…

>>> maybe if this were the case it would exert a large enough downward pressure on property values that the current owner would be forced to resolve the issue before selling. This is exactly what the current owners are trying to resolve via their complaints.. which is why their complaints are valid, even if they didn't live at the residence before the issue arose. Edit: Hence the logic holds that if complaints are re…

first off, I'm not seriously trying to make the point that it's totally illegitimate to complain about things that you knew would happen going in.

but by "current owner" I meant the person who owned the property before the annoying circumstance began.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#112
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flight paths change all the time.

Well not all the time. They can change, but approach and departure paths need to be approved by the FAA and published in official navigation charts. So they don't change on a whim.

Most people probably don't check official navigation charts, so they don't realize that just because they don't hear airplanes in a house when they visit it doesn't mean they won't later (like swapping runway direction depending on wind conditions).

The FAA NextGen changes have also moved flight paths quite a bit over the last few years. My parents live somewhere where they wouldn't expect to have airplane noise (about a 40 mile drive from the nearest airport, although more like 30 as the crow flies), but starting a year ago they've have planes flying 3,000 feet over their roof, low enough to be noticeably loud.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flight paths change sometimes. Airports expand, etc.

This is true. If you live near an airport the disclosure is required by law if you buy a house in the are. However, it doesn’t preclude expansion and changes. If for example your airport moves from 12 hour a day to round-the-clock flights... nothing you can do. It’s a sticky wicket.

Not all noise complains are from people who actually live near airports. I already linked this in my other reply, but: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/former-astronaut-fil...

> located five miles from Reagan National Airport.

That's not really close. The reason there are planes there is due to the flight paths:

> To reach Reagan National through the congested and closely monitored DC airspace, flights must basically follow the Potomac River. The problem for Vittori's neighborhood is compounded by the fact that the airport recently adopted a new flight navigation system known as NextGen to help cut carbon emissions and reduce fuel consumption. This brought planes directly over his Georgetown neighborhood.

Also see the other commenter whose living 12 miles from the airport!

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#114
post #34

Not that there's anything wrong with reporting on the same topic by multiple publications, but this article just seems like a poor copy of this WSJ article published in August: https://www.wsj.com/articles/airplane-noise-complaints-are-s... https://outline.com/Kp3HcG Out of curiosity, are there journalistic guidelines about publishing duplicate articles when there are seemingly no new pertinent developments? I haven'…

The button maker probably just sent out a press release that everyone used as the basis for their story.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Honestly, this line really grinds my gears. Let me explain: First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. Also remember that the loudness and frequency of air travel can change a lot . An airpla…

First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. In California, agents (and homeowners) are required to disclose any known issues with the property, which includes neighborhood noise issues like proximity to an airport. When I bought a house located near a small airport, the selling agent had a separate airport…

Yeah, we just bought a house in Los Angeles. They gave us this huge sheet of all these things located within x number of miles of the house. It was kinda useless since everything is within a few miles in la, but was interesting.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#116
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Honestly, this line really grinds my gears. Let me explain: First, people don't always know. Actually I think people frequently don't know. It's not like estate/rental agents are known for their outstanding honesty. Also remember that the loudness and frequency of air travel can change a lot . An airpla…

I rented near a train line for which I was told stopped running in the evenings as it was a passenger line, and only special circumstances had cargo trains coming through. Shortly after I moved in the cargo trains started running full time between 1am to 5am when they gave way to passenger trains on the line. Another thing not mentioned is routine rail maintainence vehicles work at night and they are pretty loud too.…

I lived by a train line in Australia a few years back. Commuter trains during the weekdays, and freight trains during the night and weekends. I actually found the sound really relaxing and had some of the best sleeps ever.

Though I presume not all train lines are alike.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flight paths change sometimes. Airports expand, etc.

This is true. If you live near an airport the disclosure is required by law if you buy a house in the are. However, it doesn’t preclude expansion and changes. If for example your airport moves from 12 hour a day to round-the-clock flights... nothing you can do. It’s a sticky wicket.

Cities should of course be building airports outside of the city!

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> maybe if this were the case it would exert a large enough downward pressure on property values that the current owner would be forced to resolve the issue before selling. This is exactly what the current owners are trying to resolve via their complaints.. which is why their complaints are valid, even if they didn't live at the residence before the issue arose. Edit: Hence the logic holds that if complaints are re…

first off, I'm not seriously trying to make the point that it's totally illegitimate to complain about things that you knew would happen going in. but by "current owner" I meant the person who owned the property before the annoying circumstance began.

I think we can both agree that would have been ideal, but also far from the common case, which is why this is becoming an issue and might also contribute to an overall decline in home ownership. If there is uncertainty in the marketplace that is.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#119

Another aspect to this problem is that the vast majority of houses in the US are made as cheaply as possible, and that means walls with very little mass and sound absorption. If you had something like concrete walls like is typical for Germany, the plane noise would barely register.

Houses in close proxmity airports can be designed to help minimize the noise -- I know someone that built a house in the flight path for SFO, so he used triple pane glass windows, clay roof tiles instead of the more typical asphalt shingles, some sort of soundproofing insulation in the attic, heavy solid wood exterior doors (with tight weatherstripping) among other things. Apparently the home builders in that area know what they need to do.

It works, you can barely hear the planes go by from within the house, but outside, they are loud enough to make it hard to carry on a conversation.

I think most people just get used to the noise, I used to live close to a train line - close enough that not only could I hear the train horns at the crossing, but also could hear the rumbling train cars go by and could feel the vibrations in the house.

It was super annoying for the first month or so, and then I forgot about it and never really noticed it until I had a house guest that complained about the late night noise.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#120
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like Vashon Island (from Google Maps).

That one’s easy then - to the west, and you’re on the approach path to JBLM. To the east, you’re too close to SEA to properly intercept the final approach course. Vashon Island is also far less populated than the land to the east of SEA.

For those not familiar with the Seattle area, JBLM is Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where McChord is an air force base.
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