Noise Levels in Castle Hills, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Castle Hills
Quiet office to normal conversation
1,377
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
45% of Castle Hills residents
82 dBA
Loudest residential point
Food blender at arm’s length
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Castle Hills 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 1,377 Castle Hills residents, or 45.2%, live above that level. By land area, 50.6% of Castle Hills is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Castle Hills residents, grouped by direction from the center of Castle Hills. Western Castle Hills carries the highest population-weighted average; Southern Castle Hills carries the lowest. Just 20% of residents in Southern Castle Hills live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about half the share in Western Castle Hills.
Central Castle Hills
59.3 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Castle Hills
58.2 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
62% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Castle Hills
55.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
44% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Castle Hills
51.6 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Castle Hills
61.4 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
50% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Castle Hills sounds about 97% louder than Southern Castle Hills to the human ear, a 9.8 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-410 do you need to be?
I-410 produces an estimated 81 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 quiet suburban street at night.
At source
81 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
68 dBA
Highway traffic 50 ft away
330 ft
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
53 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
¼ mile
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
38 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 18% of Castle Hills sits under tree canopy (lighter than most cities) and roughly 32% 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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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Castle Hills. For most blocks the rail-only contribution is small. Combined road-plus-rail noise rarely exceeds road noise on its own. The exceptions are the handful of blocks within roughly a quarter mile of the right-of-way during pass-through hours.
Use the Rail toggle on the map above to isolate rail's contribution from road and aviation.
Airport Noise
San Antonio International (SAT) sits east of Castle Hills. 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 Castle Hills, particularly to the west, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Castle Hills
The bar chart below shows the share of Castle Hills residents in each noise band. About 60% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 15% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Castle Hills Compares
Castle Hills sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Castle Hills's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills, Shavano Park, and Hollywood Park.
Average noise level (dBA)
Castle Hills's 55.2 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Castle Hills because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 45.2% of Castle Hills residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 50.6% of Castle Hills'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 Castle Hills
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-410 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 18% of Castle Hills is under tree cover (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 east. Neighborhoods to the west 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.
