Reduce Noise: Do Plantation Shutters Help with Noise?

Do plantation shutters help with noise?

Answering your questions for a peaceful home

Is noise pollution stopping you from fully winding down? Whether you’re in a built-up city or suburban estate, or simply have a road or railway near your house, no one wants to hear the rush-hour traffic or your neighbours’ conversations while you’re settling down for the night.

So, like most homeowners, you’re likely looking for a quick and permanent fix to reduce noise pollution in your home. In this guide, we look at how fitting plantation shutters can help.

What are plantation shutters?

Plantation shutters are a style of interior window shutters that can be fitted in a variety of homes and properties. They feature large louvres (or slats) that overlap to block out light.

If you’re interested in reducing noise in your home or office, check out our guide.

Do Plantation Shutters block out noise?

Adding plantation shutters to your windows will help to absorb noise and reduce noise pollution in your home. Whether made from hardwoods such as basswood or paulownia, or from premium poly materials, plantation shutters help to insulate and absorb incoming noise from windows.

Plantation shutters are often chosen for their attractive and timeless style for both modern and traditional style homes, and are proven to help increase curb value for properties.

With this in mind, the noise-reducing effects of plantation shutters are perhaps one of the most overlooked benefits of adding them to homes. Professionally fitted shutters offer more advanced noise reduction compared to blinds or curtains, with a secure, precise fit. This helps to provide a dense physical barrier for external sound waves.

What are the benefits of plantation shutters to you and your home?

Whether you work at home, have young children or just want to enjoy some peace and quiet during your evenings and weekends, road noise and noise pollution can make a massive impact on this.

Living with constant road traffic noise can be detrimental to your health and everyday life. We understand this cannot always be helped, especially when living in busy city areas such as London, but any small changes we can help make to your interior can help you live more comfortably.

Every customer and home is different, so the ways plantation shutters can benefit your household ultimately depends on your lifestyle. That’s why at The Shutter Studio, we work to create custom, made-to-measure window shutters, with a full range of styles, features, and designs to suit you and your home.

Full height plantation shutters in bedroom

Here are some of the many ways plantation shutters can help in your home:

More peaceful evenings: Noise reducing plantation shutters help to unwind in your living spaces, with less interference of the outside world, making them perfect for living rooms and bedrooms.
Sleep with less background noise: Whether you live in the city or near a road, the plantation shutters noise reduction helps to sleep more peacefully, while blocking out natural night.
Perfect for shift workers: By reducing noise by 10-20dB, plantation shutters are ideal for shift workers as well as bedrooms for children and light sleepers, where noise during normal working hours and road traffic can disturb rest.

fitted bay window shutters will dramatically reduce noise from exterior traffic

So, how do plantation shutters help with noise?

Plantation shutters act as a barrier to noise entering from windows, with dense materials often chosen as shutter materials to help absorb incoming sound.

Wood, for example, is often used for shutters, as it is a natural insulator for both heat and for sound. This means any wooden plantation shutters can help to absorb sound waves from the likes of road traffic and street noise.

For the best noise reduction results, it is important to achieve a precise fit for your plantation shutters; DIY shutters, ordered online and just clipped onto windows, may not be as effective as those that are made bespoke and fitted professionally. At The Shutter Studio, all of our plantation shutters and window treatment products are made-to-measure for a perfect fit, first time. This ensures that there are no gaps for road traffic and residential/suburban noise to enter through.

Quality plantation shutters with a precise fit can help to reduce noise pollution from single-glazed windows. The thick wooden frames and durable louvres of our custom shutters pair ideally with double-glazed windows for the ultimate barrier for noise reduction.

How to set your plantation shutters to reduce noise?

When you need those quieter times, we recommend you keep your shutter panels and louvres completely closed, as this can make a huge difference, compared to when they are open.

For more information on how to adjust your shutter louvres, check out our guide to opening and closing shutters here.

How else can you reduce noise pollution?

While we’re passionate about window shutters and window treatments, and how they can help to reduce noise in homes, we want to help our customers make the most of their interiors and live comfortably.

So whether you’re looking to reduce noise from outside the home, within the home, or from your neighbours, here are our extra recommendations to pair with plantation shutters to help reduce noise:

Wall coverings – Walls that sit between properties or even facing the road or garden are most likely going to bring the most noise in, so placing wall coverings, such as wooden panelling or even furniture like bookshelves, will help reduce the echoing noises.

Thick Carpets – Wooden flooring, although it may be easier to maintain, is not the best solution for reducing noise. Thick carpeting can help absorb sound and soften harsh noises around your home. This can especially reduce sounds such as moving furniture, objects being dropped or even the footsteps of your little ones running around whilst they play.

Tightening or replacing doors – Your doors, just like windows, can often have gaps, where sound and cold air can seep through and so sealing or tightening these areas, are ideal for preventing any outside noise and air coming in. Replacing older front and patio doors to newer double glazed, can add a huge difference to the insulation within your home.

These are just a few ideas of how making changes in your home can improve your lifestyle for the better. For more tips on sound insulation, visit this handy website which discusses a range of tips.

The Shutter Studio: Helping the South of England live in comfort with great-value, made-to-measure shutters

At The Shutter Studio, we’re committed to helping you make comfortable spaces that not only look relaxing, but feel relaxing. Whether that’s living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, or otherwise, we’re here to help you achieve your interior vision and live comfortably.

We offer a complete range of window shutter styles, including blackout, tier-on-tier, custom shaped, bi-fold, solid panel, and full height shutters, with shutters to suit living rooms, kitchens, doors, bathrooms, and kitchens that are timeless, elegant, and help to reduce noise pollution.

In addition to our made-to-measure window shutters, we also offer a full selection of custom blinds spanning from roller, Roman, and venetian blinds to day and night blinds, roof blinds, and more.

Get in touch today to book your free home consultation with our team, where our expert surveyors can talk you through our various styles and help you choose the perfect shutter for your individual home needs.