Questionnaire studies were conducted in a residential area before and after the erection of a 2.25 m high noise barrier of conventional type along a heavily traveled road (19 600 vehicles/24 h). The interval between studies was two years. Houses closest to the barrier received a sound-level reduction from ~70.0 to 62.5 dB Lden at the most exposed facade. The sound-level reduction decreased with distance to the road, and was negligible for houses at more than 100 m distance. Up to this distance, the noise barrier reduced residents’ noise annoyance outdoors and indoors as well as improved speech communication outdoors. Indoors, speech communication and sleep disturbance were slightly but nonsignificantly improved.