Noise in Littleton and Centennial (Denver, Highlands Ranch: houses, neighborhood, homebuyer)

[Jellystone]

Hi, guys, new to the forum here. We are moving to the Denver area in the next 1-2 months and are looking at houses in the Littleton and Centennial area. We have friends who currently live in Littleton near the Bow Mar neighborhood. They are selling their house because they say that the noise level changed significantly since the new flight paths to Denver airport got implemented. They say that traffic from Centennial airport was also diverted in their direction and hear planes flying every 15 min. I wanted to hear another opinion from someone living in those areas. Is that really the case? Is it really that bad? Thanks in advance.

[COcheesehead]

I can’t comment on Centennial traffic, but having flown in and out of Denver for years, one of the standard routes in from the west is over Waterton Canyon. That would put the flight path more over Highlands Ranch and when I lived there planes were no more or no less noticeable than elsewhere.

With all that said, there are few places in the metro area without white noise of some sort.

[Therblig]

My general understanding is that flights are at quite some altitude before they reach most of the populated spaces to the west and southwest. Does anyone get much "low aircraft" noise or is it all the fainter, higher pitched sound of craft just within hearing range?

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

We used to live just north of Centennial airport. When sitting out back on our patio, we had to stop conversations because the small noisy planes were going around and around doing touch and goes for practice. The larger, commercial planes flew in the middle of the night, and didn't disturb us.

Here's a possible resource for more information: CACNR | Noise Monitoring

[mic111]

Usually if you stand around long enough you will hear if there is a flight path over your head.

We live north of Denver. When we bought our house there was no flight path overhead. Then about 10 years in we got a flight path that lasted for about 10 years. Now with the new flight paths we don't have them anymore. They were annoying while they were there, at first but eventually I got used to them. It was about every 15 min. But now they are gone again so we are happier with that.

Take from that what you will. You could spend alot of time finding one without a flight path and then bam you have one. That being said if I was looking at a house and noticed it was under a flight path then I would not buy it. But we didn't move because of it either. I hope they keep the flight paths right where they are right now. However I do feel bad for those who got them when they didn't have them before. I don't know where our flight path came from but I'm sure the people it used to go over were also happy it left them.

[Therblig]

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii

We used to live just north of Centennial airport.

Worked right there for a few months, and yes, the planes were noticeable. I don't remember actually being bothered or "shouted down" by any, but then, it wasn't my living room or patio. (The morons playing crap rock all day in the lobby were much worse...)

Originally Posted by mic111

Usually if you stand around long enough you will hear if there is a flight path over your head.

Living anywhere in the area lets you tell people that you see UFOs all the time.

[reed303]

The airport has info re noise management and flight paths at

https://www.flydenver.com/about/admi...ise_management

There is a section for Homebuyers with info on who to call for specific info on a location.

Also there is a live real-time flight tracker at

https://secure.symphonycdm.com/publi...6noLogo%3Dtrue

[Jellystone]

Thank you everyone for the answers and for the links. I was aware of the flight tracker and the link to the Denver Airport noise management, but it still does not give me a complete picture. It is different when you are "on the ground" and can attest to personal experience because you can hear it. That said, I do appreciate all of your responses. I will keep searching for more info. Hopefully, someone who lives in the area will post on this thread soon and give me another opinion too.

[2bindenver]

I do not know if it has any basis in truth, but, realtor.com has a noise rating system.

[kokonutty]

There are people who are far more bothered by random noises than others; many of them seem to get focused on what they see as a problem and the more they focus, the worse the problem becomes to them. Other people in the same area may not even notice what is a major concern for some. I lived in an area where an organization was formed to complain about airport noise in an effort to get an airport closed completely, mostly by newcomers to the area. There was never more than unremarkable background noise to most people in the area.

The friends of the OP may be among those whose hypersensitivity feeds off itself and any such noise may be of no concern to him.