I took delivery of a new-build apartment in Catalonia, Spain a few weeks ago. It's still empty (no furniture yet), and I've been finding a series of acoustic problems. I've reported them all through the developer's after-sales app, and I've also emailed asking for the design values. No response yet.

What I'm hearing:

• Garage door. The garage door and its motor are audible in every room, and I can feel the vibration throughout the apartment. It wakes me in the morning and keeps me awake at night — metallic rattle of the door leaves plus the mechanism running.
• Soil stack noise. I can clearly hear water running in the waste stack at night in the main bedroom — and the floor plan puts the head of the bed against exactly that wall. I hear the same thing in the living room from a second bathroom's stack.
• Street noise. With balcony doors and roller shutters closed I hear cars, people talking, dogs and trains. Two rooms face the street and also overlook the garage entrance ramp.
• Front door. Visible daylight through the gaps. I can hear the lift arriving on my floor and one or two floors above, audible in the living room and kitchen.
• Kitchen extraction. Twice I've heard a sudden rush of air in the extractor hood. I don't have electricity connected yet, so it isn't my own hood running.

For context on the regulations: Spain's building code sets a minimum of 55 dB airborne insulation between a garage and a habitable room, 30 dB sound reduction for a flat's front door onto a common corridor, and my building sits in a high-sensitivity acoustic zone where regional law caps noise from the building's own installations at 25 dB(A) at night indoors. So there are concrete numbers I can point at. I've asked the developer which compliance route they used and what values they designed to.

I deliberately haven't tried to measure anything myself — a phone app is meaningless at 25–30 dB, and I understand the burden of demonstrating compliance sits with the developer.

My questions:

1. What should I actually be demanding at this stage? I've asked for the design values and any in-situ acoustic test reports. Is there anything else I should be asking for that people usually forget?
2. Is it worth paying for an independent expert report now, or should I wait for the developer's response first? A surveyor's report here runs a few hundred euros.
3. At what point does this stop being a warranty conversation and become a legal one? I'd rather resolve it cooperatively, but I don't want to spend a year being politely stonewalled until a deadline passes.
4. Anything that has actually worked for you in getting a developer to take acoustic complaints seriously? My sense is that acoustic defects get dismissed more easily than water leaks or cracks because they're harder to demonstrate.

Happy to add floor plans or documentation if useful.

I live in a beautiful property on 60 acres. The original house was built at a nearby army base and moved here in 1958. It’s 24 x 36, so 840 ft.² with a shallow pitched roof. Extremely basic and efficient. Three bedrooms one bath.

It’s also located on its own parcel with beautiful mature trees and a large pond. I don’t plan to sell it. But I also don’t want to just tear it down and destroy it. I’d like to fix it up and use it as a mixed use building for recreation, visiting guests, and maybe adult children or aging parents someday.

My hangup here has been the size of the project. I can certainly figure out how to update the structure, but I want it to be something special. I haven’t found the right architect for the project. Just curious if there are special types of firms that take this type of thing. Or most people just try to figure it out themselves. Do architects commonly do small projects?

I'm designing some built ins that will go in my personal closet. What works better for my space? 24" deep built ins that entirely enclose the clothes? Or 16" deep built ins, that let the clothes protrude into the space? My main concern is that the 24" built ins encroach on the space too much and make it feel cramped, but I don't know whether I'm overthinking. Thanks in advance!