That's good advice Ray. Thanks.

aye aye aye, dealing with contractors....

I've lined up a bunch for this week to come and look. About half window installers and half general contractors. One in particular gets across the board stellar ratings on google. That might be enough to sell me unless their price is just outrageous.

I'm starting to get less and less anxiety over the house next door. Once we get the door replaced and I can figure out some sort of sound barrier at the pool, I think I'll be good. Can't really do much about it other than lots of barriers.

the improvement from the door will be modest. unless it was installed with too much air space around it. that's what lets the sound come in.

if you use a general contractor the price will be outrageous. as he takes a markup on the materials. then sends a person out that he takes a markup on his labor. and then adds a % to the bill for being the contractor.

best to find a local carpenter that does that stuff and you pay him his hourly wages. and dont try to get a bid. all bids are extra high to foresee any future problems. so you pay for those problems that may never be realized. and they have an incentive to cut corners as the price has been determined. and the worker get s no extra benefit for doing those parts of the work that are disagreeable or dirty, like chalking and insulation.

a big job you have no choice as its too involved to be your own general.

I get all of this and I'll just bite the bullet.

The owner of the house next door showed up and we had a talk.

Got a bit heated at first, but we worked through it I think. He told me his hope is to retire there eventually, so at some point it might be his home. He did have a point that he spent a ton of money on furnishings so he has a vested interest in having good renters.

That doesn't solve the issue of people coming and going but I guess I feel a bit better about things. I'm still going to soundproof stuff and raise our wall (which he didn't mind).

I thought I had a window guy picked out.......................until he told me it would be at least 6 months to get the actual window. I hope it's just this manufacturer but I'm guessing this might be an across the board issue.

if its just a solid window that you dont need to open. then many glass places can make you one quickly and if a standard size which most are then they are in stock someplace. even standard double hung or single are in stock.

So, the issue with wait times is for the "pocket" door. The ones we have open all the way. The entire window/door slides behind our exterior wall. These are very expensive and the wait time is ridiculous. However, we can order a standard sliding glass door for much less and less time. The gotcha is the contractor would have to do more work to install it. Basically build a frame for it and cut some flooring to make it fit.

After talking to a jillion folks about this, I'm on board with the second solution. We have never opened our doors all the way. In fact, we didn't even realize we could until a window guy showed us.

I think the total cost will be a wash since the actual windows are much cheaper.

I've also learned that maybe we don't really need hurricane windows to knock the sound down a lot. I've done some googling and it appears that you can order windows (double pane) with dissimilar glass, which is almost as effective for knocking down the sound. Basically, one pane is thicker than the other. It does some sort of magic in cutting down the sound waves. Much cheaper than hurricane glass.

if you have shutters the only advantage of hurricane glass is that you can see out in a hurricane instead of no view.

hurricane glass does break but doesnt shatter and stays together mostly.

you can get 3m film put on so it doesnt shatter and also makes it very hard for someone to smash it. its expensive .

It should also be bullet proof.

And as an additional protection, I would suggest in investing in at least two 50-caliber machine guns. Mounted on 360 degree swivels.

And razor wire. Can't forget the razor wire.

Hehe.

Dealing with window guys and various contractors is about worn me out. I have it narrowed down to two. Just waiting on estimates.

In the mean time....

I considered waiting on building my soundproof "wall" in the pool area, but I just looked and the guy has his place booked pretty solid for a while. I'm putting that on the fast track since I doubt I'll get my sliding glass doors installed any time soon.

I have a plan for my "wall". I'm going to make 4x8 panels. The layer towards me will be a thin vinyl decorative panel. The next layer out will be something called mass loaded vinyl. It comes in rolls and is specifically made to reflect sound. It is pretty thin. The next layer will be a styrofoam insulation panel. This will not only absorb sound, but provide some rigidity to the panel. Not sure what the exterior will be. Something not too heavy and somewhat rigid.

I'll be ordering cinder blocks soon to raise our wall as well.

Lots of projects. My bathroom remodel will have to wait.

One of the projects we've really wanted to do is put some pavers down in various places. I figured we might need 2 pallets for the first phase, and a pallet later on.

Pavers be expensive. The cheapest ones at home depot are 68 cents each, which comes out to around a grand.

We were talking about which color we wanted so I got online and started browsing.

Much to my surprise, home depot had them on sale for 23 cents each.

I called and they said the sale ended at midnight.

So we rushed over and bought 3 pallets. My truck could only carry one at a time so it took 3 trips, plus unloading them brick by brick.

But we got it done. Well worth the cost savings.

On the window thing: heard a slew of window-replacement ads this afternoon (I guess it's that time of the year here), and reminded me.

When I had them upgraded, got Milgard. Don't remember if that's what the installer recommended or all he worked with.

One the of great features about Milgard for me is lifetime guarantee. I've had the main pane in my BR lose the seal and mist up twice. Called them up, within a few days they had someone over to install a new one. Also a few times of other small things like a lock quit catching. They've been quite good at responding quickly when I needed fixes.

Definitely something to consider when comparing brands.

ive found in doing houses paying up for better doors, windows and hardware pays off.

I haven't heard of milgard. I'm guessing they might be regional?

We have some pretty good window manufacturers here. The best, unfortunately, has the longest wait times.

But, yeah, I've been googling different brands that the installers suggest. The last installer, and hopefully the one I end up using, said they use 4 different brands but the one he suggested he said almost never have issues and the company has an impeccable track record of fixing anything that does go wrong.

Yeah, looks like Milgard is Western US only. Sorry about that.

np

I swear, these contractors. It's like they don't want business. It's been almost a week since I asked for a second estimate (based on type of window) and haven't heard a thing. I guess that's a good red flag. Imagine if I really needed something.

Still waiting on the guy I think I'll use.

Meanwhile, it appears that after our talk, the homeowner amended his rules to "No events, parties, or large gatherings". I'll take this minor victory.

But, he's booking it pretty solid now. So, we'll continue with our modifications.

Also, just bought the base material for our pavers. Pretty inexpensive.

What kind of base/technique are you using?

Some years back, I used a much smaller number of pavers to build a base for my shed. Only about a 12' square area, so just put down some sand, moistened, and tamped by hand. Then laid the pavers on top of it.

I guess it's worked out ok, but ofc it doesn't have to be as nice as the area you're building. Wondering about the right way.

I first read about it and it seems the best result is putting down some sort of crushed stone. I talked to the local supplier and he guided me towards what all of the contractors use (not sure exactly what it is - I want to say crushed concrete?).

I did the same thing you did years ago and it came out OK, but not quite what you might see from a pro. I just figured we have quite a bit of area to cover, much along the driveway that we will possibly park on, so why not at least try to do what the pros do. Plus, it was actually considerably cheaper than buying bags of sand.

Got my cinder blocks and stuff. Got some work to do.

Base material.

Im going to get 4 more blocks but this is basically how I'll raise the wall. It may not seem like much but the change in the line of sight from their yard to mine is substantial.

looks like you can go up another layer. so why not as you are doing it now.
also there is a crack going diagonally down the wall. is it still supported. you are going to have some extra wind shear there.

no one may complain but is that wall higher than code?

and a long tall solid hedge will help along the wall as it grows higher. and looks better.

any other work i can think up for you?