Shutters *other* than roller shutters for sound and heat insulation?

[Garald]

The shutters I thought I'd get for the street-side windows haven't arrived - it turns out the contractor took forever to order them, and now the factory says it's out of parts. The contractor is proposing roller shutters, adducing that they provide heat and sound insulation, and other kinds of shutters would provide virtually none.

 

I can easily believe that most shutters of a traditional kind provide little heat and sound insulation - I mean, there are spaces between the rails in a shutter panel. But are there shutters that provide about as much sound and heat insulation without being a roller shutter? Sound insulation is a priority - and I simply do not like what roller shutters look like.

[Garald]

For instance, is a model like this one likely to have any sound insulation properties worth mentioning?

 

https://volets-thiebaut.com/volet/volet-bois/volet-bois-coulissant/volet-coulissant-pliant-bois#en-savoir-plus

 

[Iceverge]

Not massively. 

 

It's full of louvres and would just let the sound through. 

 

Are internal shutters an option? 

 

 

Good roller shutters have tounge and groove joints and the slide inside brushed guard rails. They also have some internal foam so your contractor is right on this one. 

[Garald]

9 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Not massively. 

 

It's full of louvres and would just let the sound through. 

 

Right, but what about a model without louvres (given as an option in the link I gave: "volets pleins", even if only the model with louvres is depicted)?

 

 

9 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

Are internal shutters an option? 

 

They would require me to rethink a few things. Also, they would have to be of the same build as the model I linked to (four panels on each side).

 

9 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

Good roller shutters have tounge and groove joints and the slide inside brushed guard rails. They also have some internal foam so your contractor is right on this one. 

 

But the overall effect seems to still be minor (the contractor will get me the technical specifications)... and look pretty terrible with what I have got. The previous owners had (cheap) roller shutters, so I know. I can include pictures.

[Garald]

OK, the manufacturer (Thiebaut) confirms that that particular model does not have good sound or heat insulation properties. 

 

I wonder, however, if there is a model on the market that does have the required properties. I don't see a reason a priori for there not to be one, if the fit is very tight. There are sliding sound-protection shutters (https://www.ehret.com/en/extra-functions/sound-protection) but they wouldn't fit outside my windows.

[Iceverge]

Could you add secondary glazing instead? 

[Garald]

24 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

Could you add secondary glazing instead? 

 

I already have new sound-reduction windows (which work pretty well, but any additional dB of sound reduction would be wonderful, particularly at night). You mean a second set of sound-reduction windows, at some distance from them (on the other side of the window-sill, say)? That would be a very expensive and convoluted solution.

 

Yes, I wish I had got top-spec sound-reduction windows rather than sound-reduction windows that are some 3dB weaker than top-spec, but that was not my decision (I found out later) and what is done is done. What I ended up with is very noticeably better than the double-glazing the previous owners had.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Garald

[Marvin]

Hi @Garald

 

I assume you own little land between your window and the source of the noise. If it's vehicular noise is it airborne or impact or both? 

 

[Garald]

16 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Hi @Garald

 

I assume you own little land between your window and the source of the noise. If it's vehicular noise is it airborne or impact or both? 

 

 

Uh... I own flowerpots? And there is a sidewalk?

 

The noise is airborne - at least the noise that bothers me. There's a little bit of rumble when a bus or truck passes, but that's barely noticeable - it's the motorbikes that really bother me, particularly at night. It's a two-lane street, not a highway. See picture.

 

(The first floor and the attic are mine; thankfully, the ground floor isn't, not on this side (except for the bike garage). The vans you see here are parked on this street.)

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Garald

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, Garald said:

I already have new sound-reduction windows (which work pretty well, but any additional dB of sound reduction would be wonderful, particularly at night). You mean a second set of sound-reduction windows, at some distance from them (on the other side of the window-sill, say)? That would be a very expensive and convoluted solution.

I made my own from clear styrene sheet and a bit of moulded timber.  Less than £10 a pane.

They made a huge difference to the sound coming in.

 

[Garald]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I made my own from clear styrene sheet and a bit of moulded timber.  Less than £10 a pane.

They made a huge difference to the sound coming in.

 

 

Here are some pictures of my windows. Where would the secondary (tertiary?) glazing go? I don't see where it would fit, but then I don't know anything about this.

 

 

If I've got the specs right, this window offers a sound reduction of 38dB.

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Garald

[S2D2]

 

Big help for noise in hotels, but motorbikes may be a step too far as there seems to be no interest in limiting their noise levels.

[SteamyTea]

Bit tricky, especially as that switch is on the wall.

You would need to make a thin, timber frame that fits around the whole of the windows, but comes into the room enough to miss the handle, then two panels that fit to the new frame.

May need a bit of an overlap in the middle, but that is easy enough.

It is the kind of thing that is easier to just make than actually design.

 

This is what I knocked up last year.

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by SteamyTea

[S2D2]

Looking again there seems to be almost no clearance on the inward opening windows, so it may be a non-starter.

[Garald]

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Bit tricky, especially as that switch is on the wall.

 

That's the switch for the motorized awnings (which should help during the summer).

 

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

You would need to make a thin, timber frame that fits around the whole of the windows, but comes into the room enough to miss the handle, then two panels that fit to the new frame.

May need a bit of an overlap in the middle, but that is easy enough.

It is the kind of thing that is easier to just make than actually design.

 

Right - I'm having a hard time picturing how that would ever work: while only the middle windows move (the outer panels are stationary), they open both in the "normal" way and in the "German" way (they tilt). Basically, I would need to install another set of windows, set on the other side of the windowsill (some 20cm in), with the middle panels opening (in the "normal" way, at least). That is certainly not an inexpensive hack - and I do not know how well a 20cm-deep parallelopiped (as opposed to a 2cm-deep layer of air, say) would provide sound insulation.

 

Or is this really much simpler than I think?

[Garald]

If it were possible to install secondary glazing with four panes, with the central two planes sliding onto the two side panes, then that would do it (given the right dimensions). The distance between the primary double glazing and the secondary glazing would be large (22cm, or at any rate at least 16cm, if the secondary glazing is recessed), but that's not necessarily a bad thing (I'd need to ask an applied-math friend). 

 

Is this what people have in mind? Is it likely to be affordable?

[Garald]

(And how do I get this kind of four-panel secondary glazing in France? All the hits I get for "vitrage secondaire" are in Belgium! I suppose I could get a kit somewhere else and bring it here somehow...

[Iceverge]

Might internal shutters be an option? 

 

 

[Garald]

8 hours ago, S2D2 said:

Looking again there seems to be almost no clearance on the inward opening windows, so it may be a non-starter.

 

Explain?

[Garald]

5 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Might internal shutters be an option? 

 

 

 

They are an option, in that we are not talking about sun protection during the summer (the awnings take care of that). But would they have better sound-insulation properties than outside shutters?

 

I suppose secondary glazing amounts to internal shutters with the extra property of transparence.

 

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Garald said:

I suppose secondary glazing amounts to internal shutters with the extra property of transparence.

Yes.

 

I would have to draw up my idea to explain it better, trouble is, I am at work today.

Work kills creativity.

[S2D2]

57 minutes ago, Garald said:

 

Explain?

It's hard to tell but looks to be <1cm from the bottom of the open window to the sill? Fine if you only ever want to tilt the window but if you wanted to fully open it you might struggle to get a frame slim enough to avoid fouling it when opening the window.

[Garald]

37 minutes ago, S2D2 said:

It's hard to tell but looks to be <1cm from the bottom of the open window to the sill? Fine if you only ever want to tilt the window but if you wanted to fully open it you might struggle to get a frame slim enough to avoid fouling it when opening the window.

 

There's 3.3cm - just measured it. The current windows open just fine.

[S2D2]

4 minutes ago, Garald said:

 

There's 3.3cm - just measured it. The current windows open just fine.

Ah much bigger than it looked, you just need a secondary glazing frame smaller than that then.

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, S2D2 said:

Ah much bigger than it looked, you just need a secondary glazing frame smaller than that then.

And sticking out further than the handle.

Then just about anything can be attached to that.