1st L.A. Home Gets Insulation Against Burbank Airport Noise

The Salazar family may now be able to tell a pseudo-earthquake from the real thing.

Lorenzo and Alejandra Salazar are the first homeowners outside of Burbank to receive sound insulation courtesy of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. Glenwood and St. Patrick’s elementary schools in Sun Valley also have had noise-reduction work done by the airport.

“I feel like we won something,” Lorenzo said Thursday. “I didn’t think the government would be the one to help us.”

When they moved to Sun Valley from Hollywood 10 years ago, the Salazars went on full earthquake alert every time the windows rattled and a thunderous roar invaded their living room. They hit the deck, held each other and waited for the dishes to fall from their cabinets.

Fortunately, most of the time, it was just an airplane taking off or landing at Burbank Airport.

“We were thinking, ‘Oh my God, here comes another one,’ ” Alejandra Salazar said. “We had heard airplanes in Hollywood, but not like this. Not all day in the daytime. Not so close.”

The airport has been insulating homes and schools in Burbank during the past two years, but it had not crossed political boundaries into Los Angeles until Thursday. The goal is to insulate a total of 3,100 homes within the next 15 years. The authority expects the FAA to pick up 80% of the $120-million cost.

“We’re basically starting on those with the worst decibel reading first,” airport spokesman Victor Gill said during a news conference interrupted twice by jets blasting overhead. “Our airport’s noise has been going down over time. These homes were roped in primarily when the state of California lowered the standard.”

The authority has identified the area around the airport where the noise reading exceeds the federal and state limit of 65 decibels. That level falls somewhere between the sounds of freeway traffic and someone running a vacuum cleaner in the house.

On a map, “the noise corridor” looks like a tomahawk with its handle jutting westward into North Hollywood and its blade pushing north into Sun Valley and south into Burbank.

The Salazar home sits closer to the north end of the runway than the terminal. It also is a block and a half away from a Union Pacific railway.

“If you’re sitting in the living room talking, watching TV or just concentrating,” Lorenzo Salazar said, “you have to stop and wait for the planes to pass before you can continue.”

To combat the cacophony, crews installed 13 new double-paned windows Thursday. They also were expected to put in new doors and roof insulation. Those protections work only if the windows are closed, so the airport is outfitting the Salazar home with a new central air conditioning system.

The $40,000-per-home renovations represent one smooth spot in rough relations between residents near the airport and the authority, which wants to build a new terminal. Residents who sign up for the insulations also sign an agreement never to sue the airport for excessive noise.

So far, 850 of the eligible homeowners have signed up.

“We send out certified mail to all the homes in the area,” said Sidney Allen, the airport’s manager of special projects. “I believe I have 90% of the homeowners in the noisiest area signed on. We may have about 40% in the [outer] areas. But even if they don’t send the response back now, we never completely eliminate a house from the list.”

The insulations are planned in waves--single-family, owner-occupied homes first, rental houses next, then apartments.

With $12 million in FAA funds, the airport authority has enough money to complete 259 homes.

Homeowners can call the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority at (818) 840-8840 to ask about eligibility.