[quote=irondoc]Here’s some wacky advice, but well worth it in my mind. Two years ago my wife and I bought a house that is on a hill several blocks North of the 56 in Carmel Valley. My wife was paranoid about freeway noise, and we went back to the house several times during the day, and it was within my wife’s tolerable limits. This was in mid-October. After we moved in, we discovered that the worst noise is at night, when it is cold and the noise travels farther. Especially at this time of the year. Even though the traffic is lighter at night, the noise given off is greater. Visit the neighborhood of the house sometime around 11pm, park on the street near the house in question, turn off your engine. Roll down your windows or better yet get out. That will give you a sense of how bad it can get.[/quote]

Thats a good idea about going late at night. I did not consider that. We have been to the house during the day and during evening traffic hour.
The house is on a pretty steep lot overlooking the north with views of Mt soledad to the nw and cowles to the ne. We are the 2nd street up from the 8 so about 200-300 ft from the onramp but way above the highway.

We will go there again and this time sit inside and observe with the windows open and closed.
Right now we deal with the flight path noise so we figure it cant be much worse. Although the plane noise is not constant, when a plane does fly over you have to pause the movie or conversation for 15 seconds.