Noise Levels in Rimmon Heights, Manchester, NH | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
55 dBA
Average noise across Rimmon Heights
Quiet office to normal conversation
2,488
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
53% of Rimmon Heights residents
79 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Rimmon 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 2,488 Rimmon Heights residents, or 52.7%, live above that level. By land area, 68.2% of Rimmon Heights is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Rimmon Heights residents, grouped by direction from the center of Rimmon Heights. Eastern Rimmon Heights carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Rimmon Heights carries the lowest. Just 20% of residents in Western Rimmon Heights live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a third of the share in Eastern Rimmon Heights.
Central Rimmon Heights
56.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
60% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Rimmon Heights
58.5 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Rimmon Heights
56.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
51% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Rimmon Heights
53.8 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
55% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Rimmon Heights
50.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Rimmon Heights sounds about 72% louder than Western Rimmon Heights to the human ear, a 7.8 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-293 do you need to be?
I-293 produces an estimated 74 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
74 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
60 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 22% of Rimmon Heights sits under tree canopy (heavier than most neighborhoods) and roughly 57% 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
Manchester Boston Regional (MHT) sits southeast of Rimmon 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 45 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Rimmon Heights, particularly to the northwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Rimmon Heights
The bar chart below shows the share of Rimmon Heights residents in each noise band. About 43% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 12% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Rimmon Heights Compares
Rimmon Heights sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Rimmon Heights's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Somerville, Straw-Smyth, North End Manchester, and Wellington.
Average noise level (dBA)
Rimmon Heights's 55.1 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. New Hampshire as a whole averages 48.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Rimmon Heights because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 52.7% of Rimmon 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, 68.2% of Rimmon Heights's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New Hampshire average of 18.7% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Rimmon 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-293 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 22% of Rimmon Heights is under tree cover (heavier than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-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. Manchester Boston Regional's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the southeast. Neighborhoods to the northwest 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.
