Noise Levels in Balcones Heights, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Balcones Heights
Quiet office to normal conversation
982
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
43% of Balcones Heights residents
80 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Balcones Heights at 100-meter resolution, combining road, aviation, and rail sources. Green areas measure below 45 dBA. Orange and red exceed the EPA's 55 dBA outdoor threshold linked to long-term health effects. Use the layer toggles to view each source on its own or all together.
Overall
Road
Rail
Aviation
Click the map to explore
35 dBa55 dBa (EPA limit)90+ dBa
3545557090
Quietest (dBA)Loudest
Colorblind friendlyoff
What the numbers sound like
30 dBAWhisper
40 dBASoft rainfall
45 dBAQuiet suburban street at night
50 dBAQuiet office
55 dBAEPA outdoor threshold: light traffic 100 ft away
60 dBANormal conversation an arm's length away
65 dBABusy restaurant
70 dBAHighway traffic 50 ft away
80 dBACity bus interior
Population Above the EPA Outdoor Threshold
The EPA's 55 dBA outdoor reference level is a common benchmark for residential noise exposure, especially for activity interference, annoyance, and long-term community noise concerns. About 982 Balcones Heights residents, or 42.7%, live above that level. By land area, 47.1% of Balcones Heights is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Balcones Heights residents, grouped by direction from the center of Balcones Heights. Northern Balcones Heights carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Balcones Heights carries the lowest. Just 0% of residents in Western Balcones Heights live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Northern Balcones Heights.
Central Balcones Heights
54.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
42% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Balcones Heights
76.7 dBA · Loud
City bus interior
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Balcones Heights
54.7 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
85% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Balcones Heights
47.5 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
0% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Balcones Heights sounds about 657% louder than Western Balcones Heights to the human ear, a 29.2 dBA gap. Every 10 dBA roughly doubles perceived loudness. Within any of these directions, two homes a quarter mile apart can still differ by 10 or more dBA depending on how close they sit to a major highway.
How far back from I-10 do you need to be?
I-10 produces an estimated 79 dBA at its loudest centerline points. Noise drops logarithmically with distance, with the exact rate depending on what's between you and the road. Tree cover, walls, terrain, and pavement type all matter. At roughly a quarter mile back, traffic fades into the noise level of a soft rainfall.
At source
79 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
65 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
56 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
48 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
40 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 2% of Balcones Heights sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most cities) and roughly 55% is impervious surface like pavement and rooftops. Both are folded into the per-place decay rate above. Heavier canopy pulls noise down faster with distance; impervious surfaces slow the drop.
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Airport Noise
San Antonio International (SAT) sits northeast of Balcones Heights. The U.S. Department of Transportation models aviation noise around this airport from federal traffic data, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.
Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 65 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Balcones Heights, particularly to the southwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Balcones Heights
The bar chart below shows the share of Balcones Heights residents in each noise band. About 75% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 2% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Balcones Heights Compares
Balcones Heights sits at the louder end of the spectrum. Below: how Balcones Heights's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Terrell Hills, Castle Hills, Hollywood Park, and Grey Forest.
Average noise level (dBA)
Balcones Heights's 54.5 dBA pop-weighted average is at the louder end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Balcones Heights because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 42.7% of Balcones Heights residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's in the middle of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 47.1% of Balcones Heights's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Balcones Heights
Distance from highways matters more than the neighborhood name. Two homes in the same zip code can differ by 20 dBA if one sits 100 meters from I-10 and the other 500 meters away. The model captures this at 100-meter resolution, so noise exposure changes block by block.
Tree canopy can help reduce modeled noise exposure. Roughly 2% of Balcones Heights is under tree cover (much lighter than most cities), and the dominant land cover is low-intensity developed land. Both are measured from federal USDA Forest Service and USGS satellite imagery at 30-meter resolution. Streets with 60% or higher canopy show 3 to 5 dBA lower noise than comparable streets with bare ground or pavement, which is why the per-place decay rate above already accounts for it.
Airport noise is directional. San Antonio International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northeast. Neighborhoods to the southwest of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.
Sources & Methodology
The BestNeighborhood noise model is calibrated against nearly one million federal ground-truth measurements across four states. Road noise is computed from segment-level federal traffic data and propagated outward using physics-based acoustic decay, with attenuation rates that depend on the surrounding land cover.
All inputs are published federal datasets. Block-level noise is computed by combining road, rail, and aviation sound sources in the energy domain, the same physics used in professional environmental noise assessments. Read the full methodology.
