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Do blinds reduce noise? Yes, blinds can have a surprisingly noticeable impact on reducing noise filtering through into your home, and some blinds are better at this than others. Whilst blinds won’t do anything to mute the sound of noisy neighbours if your main issue is flimsy party walls, they can go a long way towards reducing traffic noise and other background sounds from outside if you live on a busy road, near a railway track, under a flight path, or otherwise in an area subject to a higher level of noise pollution than you’d like.
This blog post will tell you what blinds are best to reduce noise, and the sort of impact they can have.
Do blinds reduce noise from outside of the home?
Yes, especially if the main cause of your background noise is single-glazed, flimsy, or poorly fitting windows, blinds can reduce noise from outside. By providing an additional layer of insulation to the window, the combination of the blind’s fabric and the void formed between the blind and the window helps to make traffic noises, people talking in the street, and other sounds from outside less intrusive.
How effectively do blinds reduce noise?
You might be surprised by just how effective blinds are at reducing noise from outside of the home; but to be clear, the impact isn’t going to be the same as replacing all of your windows with hermetically sealed double-glazed ones!
That said, if your windows are the main culprit when it comes to sound leaking into your home and you choose one of the more effective types of sound-blocking blinds, you will notice an immediate and tangible improvement.
The difference, say, between being able to hear your television clearly when a train comes past or not; and in some cases, being unable to hear traffic noise or normal speaking voices outside at all that you could previously hear.
Do blinds block sound from inside getting out?
Yes, to an extent. For instance, if people outside could previously hear the sound of your television or speech, the right blinds could potentially prevent your television from being audible from outside, and either mask the sound of your own speech or at least make it impossible to determine the narrative, even if your voice could still be heard to an extent.
If you have a baby or children that are noisy, blinds can also help to reduce the impact that they have on others, but they’re unlikely to resolve the issue fully; and as I mentioned before, blinds will do nothing to lower the volume on sound bleeding in or out through party walls!
What blinds are best to reduce noise?
Some blinds are particularly good at reducing noise; and the best blind overall to reduce noise is a good quality thick Roman blind with a blackout lining, which is made to measure to ensure that it fits the window snugly.
Both roller blinds and vertical blinds made of thicker fabrics with thermally insulating linings are very effective at reducing noise too.
Other options if you’re looking for blinds in a different style and that can also be used to filter light are wooden blinds and faux-wood blinds respectively. These are both made of thick, sturdy slats (particularly faux-wood blinds) that form a good barrier between your window and external sound, but they’re not quite as effective as one-piece fabric blinds made of thick materials.
Finally, aluminium Venetian blinds might not immediately spring to mind as good blinds to reduce noise, but they’re actually really good at absorbing sound; in fact, aluminium foil is widely used as a soundproofing material, and so Venetian blinds are definitely worthy of consideration too.
