What should be considered a decent sized condo?

[Ex-Montreal Girl]

Well, just think. Five years from now, you'll be sitting on a million-plus.

As for thick walls, very few condos have those. You need buildings built before 1990 pretty much. Not that many of those in central neighbourhoods that are really affordable.

 

[TheKingEast]

I would like to start a family one day but not in a condo and for some of the reasons already mentioned. Can't raise a child when noise is so easily transfered between units. Soundproofing in newer condos is atrocious and not designed with families in mind. The city really should do more to improve the building code to support family living. It's no wonder houses continue to be more and more appealing.

 

[Filip]

My condo has cinderblock walls separating units and thicker slabs for floors. I only hear the upstairs neighbour when they clearly drop something (although somebody told me the sound of what appears to be coins scattering is actually the building shifting in temp changes).

Otherwise the only sound that tells me I have neighbours is when the next door neighbour uses their shower (I'm in a corner unit). I can hear the plumbing as we share a riser.

 

[Ex-Montreal Girl]

My condo has cinderblock walls separating units and thicker slabs for floors. I only hear the upstairs neighbour when they clearly drop something (although somebody told me the sound of what appears to be coins scattering is actually the building shifting in temp changes).

I can't swear to this but I am pretty sure we are poured concrete horizontally and vertically, with 8" concrete walls between units. I never hear the dropping of anything -- although that coins scattering sound, which we here in our building call "rolling marbles," is indeed, as I have been told, the rebar reacting to temperature changes.

Otherwise the only sound that tells me I have neighbours is when the next door neighbour uses their shower (I'm in a corner unit). I can hear the plumbing as we share a riser.

Yes, there is that. Only we hear, just about every night at 10 when everything is otherwise very quiet, a man seeing another man about a horse via our ensuite vent.

 

[Filip]

I can't swear to this but I am pretty sure we are poured concrete horizontally and vertically, with 8" concrete walls between units. I never hear the dropping of anything -- although that coins scattering sound, which we here in our building call "rolling marbles," is indeed, as I have been told, the rebar reacting to temperature changes.



Yes, there is that. Only we hear, just about every night at 10 when everything is otherwise very quiet, a man seeing another man about a horse via our ensuite vent.

That's really the only sound I hear.. The scattering coins or rolling marbles - if it's the rebar then great! I don't hear my upstairs neighbours at all!

What I'm happy about is due to the layout of my unit, the only thing that shares the common neighbour wall is my bathrooms, laundry room and walk-in-closet; otherwise, the rest of the 'living' space is completely segregated from the neighbours. In fact, the living/dining/kitchen area is at the peninsula end of the unit. No neighbours! I like my music loud and my parties louder.

 

[tripwire]

My building is ~5 years old and I consider the sound proofing REALLY good. Granted, I do have a long hallway starting from the door entrance which is a bonus for me. I only hear my neighbours:

• through balcony doors/windows should the neighbours be loud outside
• if I'm right by my entrance door
• the usual coin drop sounds
• someone drilling through the concrete
• heavy renovation (hammering against the shared walls)

I've watched movies quite loudly late at night (~1am), and have asked my neighbours if I'm disturbing them, and they've said that they don't hear me at all. The weakest sound point in my unit is the bedroom window. Even shut, a lot of outside noise filters through.

Townhouses/homes on the other hand...they definitely need better soundproofing from my experience.

 

[TheKingEast]

Interesting. I lived in a loft that had great soundproofing on neighbours from either side. But heard quite a bit of sound from upstairs. Other places I've lived, I've had terrible soundproofing to where I heard casual conversations, TV, etc. Best soundproofing I had was in a tridel built building. No sound at all...like ever. Even from the hallway the sound was muffled. Think older buildings do pretty well with soundproofing mainly because a lot of the units have carpeting which muffles a lot of sound.

8 inch slab is not that thick when you consider there are holes drilled in it to carry electrical and other utilities...so it's less than 8 inches in some areas.

 

[Geoff Olynyk]

Speaking of this discussion about soundproofing, are condo buildings advertised with their Sound Transmission Class these days? For example, a single 1/2" sheet of drywall glued to an 8" thick concrete wall has an STC of 54. Typical interior walls in homes (1 sheet of 1/2″ drywall on either side of a wood stud frame) have an STC of about 33. Here's what Wikipedia says about STCs:

In serious cases (e.g., a bedroom adjacent to a home theater room) a partition to reduce sounds from high-powered home theater or stereo should ideally be STC 70 or greater, and show good attenuation at low frequencies. An STC 70 wall can require detailed design and construction and can be easily compromised by 'flanking noise', sound traveling around the partition through the contiguous frame of the structure, thus reducing the STC significantly. STC 65 to 70 walls are often designed into luxury multifamily units, dedicated home theaters, and high end hotels.​

STC What can be heard
25 Normal speech can be understood quite easily and distinctly through wall
30 Loud speech can be understood fairly well, normal speech heard but not understood
35 Loud speech audible but not intelligible
40 Onset of "privacy"
42 Loud speech audible as a murmur
45 Loud speech not audible; 90% of statistical population not annoyed
50 Very loud sounds such as musical instruments or a stereo can be faintly heard; 99% of population not annoyed.
60+ Superior soundproofing; most sounds inaudible​

Note that the scale is exponential so every 3 points on the STC scale corresponds to a halving of the transmitted noise power.

Sound isolation is notoriously tricky to design and requires flawless execution (e.g. in my home, we're using drywall on resilient channel on the ceilings to reduce sound transmission - even a couple of drywall screws attached directly to the studs instead of to the resilient channel can short-circuit the sound isolation) so the advertised values may not match up to the reality in a condo unit. But that may be grounds for a lawsuit against the condo builder?

 

[James]

Sound transmission class is probably a little too technical for most people to understand, especially in advertising and marketing. It's like promoting something as 1 dB quieter than the competition. Most people won't have a clue as to what that means in the real world, aside from the notion that it's better if it's quieter.

At the risk of going off on a tangent, acoustics is a somewhat grey science since there are so many variables that play a role in the actual sound pressure levels at a receiver. The industry generally uses acoustics testing in an accredited lab (as opposed to calculated values) but these are under 'best possible' conditions, which still have limitations, and the results recorded will still vary from trial to trial.

 

[Geoff Olynyk]

Sound transmission class is probably a little too technical for most people to understand, especially in advertising and marketing. It's like promoting something as 1 dB quieter than the competition. Most people won't have a clue as to what that means in the real world, aside from the notion that it's better if it's quieter.

@James - this is where it can often help to create some sort of branding or certification, like Dolby or THX for sound systems. There are a bunch of technical things that those organizations test, but at the end of the day, all the average person sees is that a movie theatre has the THX logo and trusts that that means it's going to have great sound. The technical details are hidden behind the trusted brand.

Imagine - a logo with a stylized line-drawing of a sleeping baby, and the text "FamilyQuiet® walls certified" below the advertisement for the condo project (or the advertisement for a sale). The organization could certify projects pre-construction based on designs (and maybe even certification of the construction company, since execution is so important for soundproofing) or certify already-existing units based on actual tests.

I mean, I guess the fact that nothing like this exists already says that there's no demand for it - but if the future of raising a family in the GTHA is in a condo, maybe something like this will eventually pop up?

 

[Edward Skira]

I can't swear to this but I am pretty sure we are poured concrete horizontally and vertically, with 8" concrete walls between units. I never hear the dropping of anything -- although that coins scattering sound, which we here in our building call "rolling marbles," is indeed, as I have been told, the rebar reacting to temperature changes.

I always thought the person upstairs was practicing his golf putting. Interesting tidbit.

 

[W. K. Lis]

This is an old article, but some people have been combining two adjoining units to create a single large unit (with two entrances of course).

See link.

Take two condo units, combine, beautify

Both Mr. and Ms. Q*** are business-class passengers on the jumbo jet of life. Both have had busy, fulfilling careers involving much flying, many hotel rooms, and several residences in cities throughout eastern Canada.

But recently the time came for the Q*** to find a permanent roost. It had to be downtown - they are thoroughly urban people - and it had to be a condominium with all the advantages of condo living: views of the inner city, a concierge, ease of maintenance, no lawn to mow and great terraces to entertain and lounge on.

Then the Q*** ran into problems that confront many a home-buyer in the downtown or suburban towers: the bland, generic suite layouts one usually finds in high-rise condo blocks, and the cramped dimensions of even the largest affordable apartments. They came up with an interesting solution, however. The couple bought two adjacent two-bedroom condos in a recent building near the corner of Queen Street West and Beverley Street. Then they hired Toronto designers Merike Reigo and Stephen Bauer to strip the place back to the bare concrete supports and combine these apartments into a single loft nearly 3,000 square feet in area.

 

[Ex-Montreal Girl]

8 inch slab is not that thick when you consider there are holes drilled in it to carry electrical and other utilities...so it's less than 8 inches in some areas.

That 8" is just a guess. It could be more, it could be less. We also have plaster/lathe interior walls which are also super thick. I can tell you that (1) we can't yell at each other across the suite because we can't hear anything and (2) we had to have an industrial type modem installed (with a repeater or whatever it's called) because the wireless signals were having a helluva time traveling a mere 20 feet through a wall. We ain't pretty but we're solid.

 

[taal]

I think when folks compare condos in terms of noise it is a very biased comparison; I'll say the neighbour you have plays a very big role; Even thinking about my unit; I thought it was the best sound proofing in the world, new neighbours, not so much (still pretty good and no complaints from me) but that is a really really big factor.

Anyway who uses a subwoofer, you're going to hear that (the extent of which varies), best case I find is you hear very little in way of TV / music noise, no matter what you will hear things like dropping (and the building settling) and noise from the bathroom above.

When I first moved to a condo even the little noises bothered me so much, but over time I became more and more used to them they don't bother met at all; Running the AC / fan helps enormously (but yes it costs electricity).