Noisy Neighbours Ruining Your Italian Holiday Home: Why It Happens in Summer and How to Fix It for Good
Let me tell you something I’ve heard hundreds of times over twenty years of surveys, always in almost the same words: “I bought this place to relax, and it’s the spot where I sleep worst of all.”
I’m Paolo Marchetto, founder of SilenzioCasa. Since 2005 I’ve done only one thing: soundproofing private homes. Not warehouses, not offices, not restaurants. Homes. And among homes, one category lands on my desk with a frequency that surprises the owners themselves: holiday homes. The ones by the sea, on the lakes, in the mountains. The ones bought specifically to rest, and that disappoint precisely when it comes to resting.
In this article I want to explain, as a technician before a salesman, why your Italian holiday home is noisy exactly when it should be silent, what you’ve probably already tried without success, and what the one route is that closes the problem for good. No spin, no illusions: if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that DIY fixes and budget quotes, in acoustics, end up costing far more than the job done right the first time.
Why a Holiday Home Is Almost Always Noisier Than You Expected
There’s a precise technical reason, and it has to do with how and when most Italian holiday properties were built.
A large share of the holiday apartments along the coast, around the lakes and in the mountain resorts were built between the 1970s and the early 2000s, during the great construction boom. Back then, the goal was to maximise sellable square metres, and sound insulation between one unit and the next was neither a serious legal requirement nor a selling point. The dividing walls between apartments are often thin — lightweight hollow brick, sometimes even single-layer plasterboard. The result is what you already know too well: a normal conversation in the apartment next door crosses the wall as if it weren’t there. This is why thin walls in an Italian holiday home are the rule, not the exception, for properties of that era.
But there’s a second factor, and it’s the one that turns a tolerable annoyance into a holiday nightmare: the season. In summer, three things happen at once. First, the heat means you keep the windows open, so external noise stacks on top of what already comes through the walls. Second, the buildings are full: your neighbours are on holiday exactly like you, so they’re home, they stay up late, they have guests, the children aren’t at school and run from morning till night. Third, in resort areas the people next door change constantly — one week a quiet family, the next a group coming home at three in the morning. You never settle into a rhythm, because the source of the disturbance keeps changing. That’s the essence of summer noise in an Italian apartment.
When I carry out a survey in one of these homes, the first thing I explain to the owner is that the noise doesn’t necessarily come only from the wall they share with the neighbour. It can also travel through the floor, the ceiling, the side walls. It’s a technical point I’ve covered in depth in our guide on how to soundproof the walls of a home, and it determines everything: if you don’t understand where the sound is getting in, any intervention is a gamble. This is exactly why no serious solution exists without first seeing the problem in person.
What You’ve Already Tried (and Why It Couldn’t Work)
Let me guess the path you’ve taken so far. I know it by heart.
First, earplugs. They get you through one rough night, but you can’t spend your holidays sleeping with plugs in every night: you wake up with sore ears and you hear the louder noises anyway. They’re a plaster over a fracture. I explained why in detail in our article on why earplugs for sleeping are not the solution.
Then you moved on to the furniture remedies: the bookcase pushed against the wall, heavy curtains, thick rugs, maybe acoustic foam panels bought online. And here there’s a misunderstanding I want to clear up once and for all, because it’s the mother of all mistakes. Those products absorb the echo inside the room, but they don’t stop the sound arriving from outside. They are two different physical phenomena: absorption improves the internal acoustics of a space (useful in a dining room that echoes), insulation blocks incoming noise. To stop your neighbours you need insulation, and no rug, no curtain, no stick-on panel delivers it. It’s the first of the mistakes I listed in the article on the 10 errors not to make with noisy neighbours.
Finally, the most expensive attempt: you called a local builder or plasterer. He fitted a plasterboard wall that “insulates,” you spent a few hundred euros, and two months later you realised almost nothing had changed. It’s not really his fault: the plasterboard fitter doesn’t know acoustics. He works with simple materials because he doesn’t know how to combine the complex ones, and he uses a basic technique because that’s what’s used in construction. Those systems don’t solve the problem — they reduce noise by 3 to 7 decibels, a difference the ear can barely register.
What It Actually Takes to Stop a Neighbour’s Noise
Now we get to the technical part, and I want to explain it well, because it’s the heart of everything.
To block the sound passing through a wall, it isn’t enough to add mass, to “build a thicker wall.” You have to manage vibration. It’s the principle on which I built the Tecnologia Acustica Vibrante® (Vibrant Acoustic Technology), and it’s counterintuitive, so follow me.
A rigid, fixed wall blocks only part of the sound and lets the rest through: it reaches -3 to -8 dB. A counter-wall designed to “vibrate” in a controlled way, instead, behaves like a car’s shock absorber: rather than reflecting the sound energy, it dissipates it. The result rises to -15 to -19 dB. Translated into real life, that’s the difference between “it sounds the same as before” and “I can’t hear them anymore.” This is the core of effective acoustic insulation in a home, as opposed to the cosmetic kind.
The wall, ceiling or floor, in the presence of noise, “works acoustically” by vibrating: it’s a phenomenon invisible to the naked eye, but it’s exactly what cushions and cuts the noise passing through the element. And pay attention to a point I always repeat to clients: without proper design of the vibration, the insulation is irremediably compromised. Once installed, a traditional solution that lacks this characteristic can no longer be corrected. Either it’s done well from the start, or it has to be demolished and redone.
There’s also something I care about personally, and that matters even more in a bedroom where your children or grandchildren sleep when they visit on holiday. The insulating material we use, SonorTop®, is 100% natural, recycled fibre, free of toxic adhesives and with zero release of volatile substances. You won’t find it for sale: only we use it. I developed it after a client years ago — a lung specialist and researcher — told me he would never want rock wool or glass wool sealed inside the walls of his own home. That sentence changed the way I work. Over 80% of our interventions are in bedrooms, and I’m not willing to seal a potentially problematic material inside a wall, forever. The full story is on the page dedicated to SonorTop®.
How Much It Costs, with the Real 2026 Prices
Let’s get to the numbers, because I know it’s the question on your mind. These are the prices from our updated 2026 price list, 10% VAT included, materials and labour included:
| Intervention | Cost per m² | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Wall, 6 cm | €195/m² | Moderate airborne noise (TV, voices) |
| Wall, 8 cm | €220/m² | Intense noise + low frequencies |
| Wall, SonorTop® Ultraslim 3.5 cm | Price at the free survey | Rooms with very little space available |
| Suspended ceiling, 20 cm | €280/m² | Impact noise (children, heels from above) |
Let’s do some concrete sums, because prices per square metre say little until you translate them into your actual room.
If the problem is the neighbour next door and it’s enough to insulate the shared wall of a bedroom — say 4 metres wide by 2.7 high, that is 10.8 m² — with the 6 cm wall you’re at around €2,106. If the noise is intense, with low frequencies (a TV with a subwoofer, a home theatre, very present voices), you move up to the 8 cm wall. This is the realistic cost to soundproof a wall in Italy, with no surprises.
If instead the disturbance comes from above — the classic children’s footsteps in the apartment upstairs — the work is on the ceiling, and a 16 m² bedroom with a suspended ceiling at €280 per m² comes to €4,480.
For a complete intervention on a bedroom — two walls plus the ceiling — the typical bill is around €8,770. Keep that number in mind, because shortly I’ll show you why, even for a house you use only a few weeks a year, it’s a figure that makes perfect sense.
“But I Only Go There a Month a Year”: The Maths That Changes the Perspective
It’s the number-one objection from holiday-home owners, and it’s a fair one. I’ll answer it with numbers, not emotions. Because the real question isn’t the cost to soundproof a holiday home — it’s whether it pays off, and here’s the proof that it does.
Take that complete intervention at €8,770. Acoustic insulation isn’t an appliance that breaks down: it lasts as long as the house, we’re talking at least twenty years with no maintenance whatsoever. Spreading the cost over twenty years comes to €439 a year, that is €1.20 a day. Less than a coffee at a bar. For every single night you spend in that house, for the next twenty years, in silence.
And it doesn’t end there, because there are two concrete financial returns beyond the silence. The first: a soundproofed home is worth more on the market, and in tourist areas where the quality of rest is everything, it’s a real selling point the day you might decide to sell. The second: the work is eligible for a 50% tax deduction. But on this point I have to warn you, because it’s exactly where the trap of seemingly convenient quotes is hidden.
The Trap of the “Cheap” Quote
The 50% tax deduction applies only if whoever carries out the work is able to issue the acoustic result certification. The general plasterboard fitter cannot do it. So that €3,000 quote that looks the most convenient actually costs you the full €3,000; the same work done by a certified specialist costs you €1,500 in real terms, because you recover the other half through the IRPEF tax deduction over ten years.
To this, add the risk of redoing everything, which is the real blow. I’ve seen the same identical path hundreds of times. First attempt with the plasterboard fitter at €800: it doesn’t work, you realise after two months. Second attempt with an “acoustic” competitor at €1,440: it improves a little but not enough, and meanwhile you’ve had to pay to demolish the first job. Third attempt, finally the right one: but by now you’ve thrown away the money from the first two, plus the demolitions. The total bill for this “path of errors” easily reaches €7,000–€8,000, to solve a problem that, tackled properly from the start, would have cost far less.
Faced with a price of 40–50 euros per square metre, it’s easy to understand that something is off. The work of serious competitors costs about the same as ours, sometimes more, but performs half as well. That’s why choosing on the basis of price alone, in acoustics, is the surest way to get hurt — especially when you’re a foreign owner managing the project from another country and a second round of work means flying back.
The Guarantee That Takes the Risk Off Your Shoulders
And here I come to the thing that matters most of all, especially for you, with the house far away and no way to oversee the work in person every day.
We work with a “100% Satisfied or Refunded” guarantee, and the guarantee is on the result, not on the numbers of a technical data sheet. It means you are the one who decides whether the problem has been solved, whether you’ve gone back to sleeping, whether there is now silence in that bedroom. We don’t decide, and neither do decibels on a sheet of paper that can be manipulated. You decide, and no one else. If your answer is no, the refund is total.
It’s a position that exposes us, I know. But it’s also the reason why, sometimes, we are the ones to advise against a job and leave money on the table: if I’m not certain I can give you the result, I won’t promise it, because otherwise I’d have to refund you. When you meet one of our technicians, in the end, you just have to hope he tells you “yes, the work can be done”: from that moment on, the risk is no longer on your shoulders — it’s on ours. All the details are on the 100% Guarantee page, and if you’d like to read what clients who’ve already had the work done say, there are the testimonials.
Why the Local Builder Can’t Solve It, and a Specialist Can
There’s a temptation, when you have a house in a tourist town, to rely on the local building firm that “has already done work here.” I understand it, but it almost always leads to disappointment, for one fundamental reason: residential acoustics is a specialism, not a general building skill.
A specialist does three things a generalist cannot. First, a survey to understand exactly where the noise enters — the shared wall, yes, but potentially also the floor, ceiling, side walls. Second, the design of the vibration itself with the Tecnologia Acustica Vibrante®, choosing between the 6 cm and 8 cm system depending on the type of noise. Third, the certification that unlocks the 50% tax deduction, which only a qualified acoustic technician can issue.
We use the most sophisticated materials on the market — and I don’t say that for the sake of it, I have the technical data sheets for everything we install — and we build the load-bearing structures with the most advanced methods. Since 2005 this is all we do; we’ve soundproofed over 3,200 homes and treated more than 50,000 square metres of surfaces. We don’t “adapt” standard solutions to your problem: we build the solution to measure, right in your home. That’s what makes us an Italian acoustic specialist rather than just another contractor.
How It Works, in Practice
The work is faster than you’d think, which is good news for anyone who has to fit it between one stay and the next:
| Intervention | Timeframe |
|---|---|
| 1 wall (10-15 m²) | 1-2 days |
| 2 walls (20-30 m²) | 2-3 days |
| Suspended ceiling (under 20 m²) | 2-3 days |
| Complete (walls + ceiling) | 4-5 days |
You don’t have to empty the house: work is confined to the area concerned. A single wall is done over a long weekend, and many clients schedule it in spring, before the season, so they find the house ready and silent when they arrive for the summer.
It all starts with a free survey. And when I say free, I mean genuinely free: we don’t charge for the survey only to then deduct it from the job — we don’t like those practices, and we don’t want you to feel obliged to proceed with us. The technician comes, assesses where the noise is coming from, tells you whether and how it can be solved, and leaves you a clear quote with timings and costs. With no obligation at all. You can see the areas we cover on our Where We Operate page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it worth soundproofing a house I only use a few weeks a year? Yes, and it’s purely a matter of maths. The insulation lasts as long as the house, so the cost is spread over at least twenty years: a complete intervention of €8,770 comes to around €1.20 a day. Add that the property rises in value and that you recover 50% through the tax deduction, and the investment makes sense even for seasonal use only.
Can I soundproof only the wall I share with the neighbour? Often yes, but it needs to be verified first. If the noise comes only from that wall, the work is targeted and costs less: a 10.8 m² wall starts from around €2,106. But the sound might also travel through the floor or the side walls, which is exactly why the survey serves to establish where it really enters, before you spend a euro.
How long does the work take? Do I have to empty the house? A single wall is done in 1-2 days, two walls in 2-3, a complete intervention in 4-5 days. You don’t need to empty the house: work is confined to the area concerned. The timings are designed precisely to fit between one stay and the next.
Is the material safe? Children sleep in that bedroom. Yes. We use SonorTop®, a 100% natural and recycled material, free of toxic adhesives and with no emission of volatile substances. I developed it precisely because over 80% of our work involves bedrooms, often with children, and I didn’t want traditional fibrous materials sealed forever inside the walls.
Do I need condominium authorisation or building permits? No. For work inside your own apartment you don’t need approval from the building’s assembly, nor CILA or SCIA planning procedures, nor municipal permits. You only need to respect the working hours set out in the building regulations.
As a foreign owner, can I still claim the 50% tax deduction? The deduction applies to the property and to the certified work, which is why using a specialist who can issue the acoustic result certification is essential — a general builder cannot. The specifics of your eligibility depend on your tax position in Italy, so it’s worth confirming with your Italian accountant, but the certification is the non-negotiable starting point.
What if I still hear noise after the work is done? The “100% Satisfied or Refunded” guarantee applies: you are the judge of whether the problem has been solved, whether you’ve gone back to resting. If the answer is no, the refund is total. It’s a guarantee on the real result, not on technical numbers.
How much does the survey cost? Nothing. It’s always free and without obligation. The technician comes, assesses the situation and leaves you a detailed quote. We don’t deduct the cost of the survey from the job, and there’s no obligation to proceed.
Is it better to do it before summer? It’s the ideal moment. By scheduling the work in spring you find the house already silent when you arrive for the holidays, and the fast timings — a long weekend for one wall — fit neatly before the season.
If noisy neighbours are ruining the holidays in the home you bought to be at peace, the first step is just one: understand exactly where the noise is coming from. Contact us for a free survey or call the freephone number 800 031 589. One of our technicians will come and assess your home, with no obligation at all. From that moment, the problem becomes ours.
— Paolo Marchetto, founder of SilenzioCasa
