Extractor fan noise complaint

[vivilau26]

hi guys,

My takeaway has been established for over 25 years, however in the last 2 years a new neighbour has moved into the next door property (semi detached with the takeaway). He has bought the property for investment purposes and is only there aprox 6 weeks in the whole year.

He has recently filed a complaint to the government of the noise level my extractor is making causing him not being able to sleep. As good neighbours we have gotten an electrician out and changed the motor of the extractor completely hoping it would cancel the noise down. However the db level is still at 40db as requirement is 30. I have no knowledge in this sector and really wouldn't want to waste anymore money on changing or installing parts which do not make a difference to the noise level.

What type of person profession should I be trying to find which has experience in these fields and know what they are doing? As looking at many local electricians, they do not seem specialised in this or do not want to take on the job.

Thanks

 

[Navahmed]

Hi
We specialize in this field
I'm sure we could assist
Gives a call in the morning
07525047861

 

[The Byre]

What type of person profession should I be trying to find which has experience in these fields and know what they are doing? As looking at many local electricians, they do not seem specialised in this or do not want to take on the job.

Thanks

There are plenty of ways of installing a silent extractor fan. Unfortunately, most electricians in the UK just shop at one wholesaler and if their local outlet does not have anything on the shelf, then as far as they are concerned, such an installation just does not exist.

I can assure you that there are dozens of silent extractor fans on the market and there are plenty of ways to install a 'noisy' fan so that the noise is captured. This is usually done by installing the fan inside a ducting system that captures noise, but still allows the air to be expelled.

You must not, however, install a high-speed fan on an outside wall. That is like having a car exhaust without a silencer! The fan has to be inside and the ducts have to allow the air free passage, but capture the noise.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Would not a catering equipment company be the most knowledgeable experts in this field, they have to install the whole cooking systems in new startups all the time

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I wouldn't have thought 40db was excessive for a commercial establishment... Who has told you you must change it?

 

[The Byre]

40dBA at night is loud. Also it is unnecessary, as you can get commercial fans that make no noise whatsoever (as low as 12dBA at 3m) and you can take a conventional fan and install it so that it becomes totally silent.

All extractor fan noise is completely avoidable.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

40dBA at night is loud.

Traffic noise is higher than that. Rowdy patrons would be higher than that... 40db on a road I wouldn't consider excessive. And I appreciate peace and quiet. Both my properties are in very quiet locations, the owls and foxes are probably the loudest noises we normally get. I wouldn't buy a property next to a takeaway because I appreciate peace and quiet and I wouldn't expect much peace and quiet next to a takeaway...!

 

[vivilau26]

I wouldn't have thought 40db was excessive for a commercial establishment... Who has told you you must change it?

It was a letter from the council as they have been out and evaluated the noise.

It just annoys me how the council are telling us to change this and that but where does this limit stop? What if I tried everything possible and it is still over? Does that mean I have to move my entire unit for him? It's strange how when I ask them for advice all they say is "we are not specialised to tell you where the problem it! that's for you to find out and solve". For a guy who is there 10% of the year?

 

[vivilau26]

I wouldn't have thought 40db was excessive for a commercial establishment... Who has told you you must change it?

40dBA at night is loud. Also it is unnecessary, as you can get commercial fans that make no noise whatsoever (as low as 12dBA at 3m) and you can take a conventional fan and install it so that it becomes totally silent.

All extractor fan noise is completely avoidable.

our takeaway is only open from 5:30-10pm. Only peak time when extractor is on louder is around 6-8pm. We also have a bedroom which is closer to the extractor than theirs but either we are used to it or it isn't as loud as what he thinks.

 

[The Byre]

Admittedly, 40dBA may not seem to be loud to you (or to me!) but fan noise is extremely annoying to some people, as it is a constant drone.

If you do not comply with the council, you are facing a £20,000 fine, so you really don't have any choice, but to fix it. Extractor fan noise is totally and easily avoidable and I suggest that you google "silent extractor fans for commercial kitchens" and fix this before you do get fined.

 

[fisicx]

^^^What he said. Do it now before the complaint goes any further and your takeaway potentially gets shut down.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Admittedly, 40dBA may not seem to be loud to you (or to me!) but fan noise is extremely annoying to some people, as it is a constant drone.

If you do not comply with the council, you are facing a £20,000 fine, so you really don't have any choice, but to fix it. Extractor fan noise is totally and easily avoidable and I suggest that you google "silent extractor fans for commercial kitchens" and fix this before you do get fined.

Depends if it was a formal notice or an informal request. I'm very dubious this case would get past a magistrate... The place has been there for 25 years without a complaint...! And if I remember correctly 40 db is about the noise of a humming fridge or someone whispering...

Edit: Just found this

Library, bird calls (44 dB); lowest limit of urban ambient sound

Having said that, if there is a reasonably cheap fix, then avoiding legal action and ill feeling might be worth it...

 

[vvaannmmaann]

This from 2005 seems to cover all the legal aspects of this.Seems to offer lots of good advice as well.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...a/file/69280/pb10527-kitchen-exhaust-0105.pdf

 

[The Byre]

Firstly, there is obviously here a gross misunderstanding of what noise is and how it is measured. The council will have measured the noise at an A-weighting. We hear sound more or less at a C-weighting, which at 50Hz (the typical low hum of a fan) is a massive 30dB lower than how we hear. +10dB is a doubling of volume, so although at higher frequencies 40dBA may be rather quiet, at 50Hz, it is eight times as loud.

To compare the low hum of a fan with bird song is misleading.

If the fan is throbbing at 20Hz, the real volume to the human ear is 16 times as loud as the measured sound (i.e. a 40dB difference).

If the fan is humming at 100Hz, the perceived sound is 'only' four times as loud as the measured sound (a 20dB difference).

Continuous noise (such as from a fan) is considered injurious to health. For this reason, councils are more likely to issue a noise abatement order for low frequency prolonged noise, than for, say, a car driving past or people laughing loudly. Such a notice will tell those notified that they have committed statutory nuisances under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and that they must either cease the nuisance or have 21 days to appeal to a magistrate's court.

The council has considerable powers and can indeed close a shop down for not installing a silent fan.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Your knowledge Byre, is as always outstanding on a massive range of subjects

Well done

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Wonder why this thread disappeared for a while...?

Firstly, there is obviously here a gross misunderstanding of what noise is and how it is measured.

I assure you I have a very good understanding in particular in relation to health effects.
I suffered a noise problem for over two years which left me unable to work for four years and a further three years before I was back to more or less full health.
I fought a legal battle, as a LiP against a solicitor who tried every dirty trick in the book, and I won. I know a thing or two about noise and associated legislation...

The council will have measured the noise at an A-weighting. We hear sound more or less at a C-weighting, which at 50Hz (the typical low hum of a fan) is a massive 30dB lower than how we hear. +10dB is a doubling of volume, so although at higher frequencies 40dBA may be rather quiet, at 50Hz, it is eight times as loud.

I think you've got that wrong. Unfortunately I don't trust my memory (one of the lingering effects of the noise we were subjected to) and I can't find an easy to understand explanation online, so I won't argue.

In our case, the council issued an informal notice. I believe this is normal practice in the hope it will resolve the issue. Our perpetrator challenged this and as a result the council refused to take action, even after measurements on a noise meter showed 128db at 00:30 in a very quiet residential only area - background noise level 24db. The main difference was that the noise was loud impact noise rather than continuous noise, so hard to record and measure with the councils 5 min tapes... Our own meter was digital and we could leave it on all night, though it only retained the loudest noise. We upgraded to a continuous recording device later, but then the neighbour moved out before we could use it in anger.

I suspect that the OP has had an informal notice, though he/she mentions the council has taken measurements, so I might have that wrong.

If the OP wants to settle with minimum hassle, then fitting a silent fan is clearly a simple solution - I didn't know these were available. When I was looking for a replacement bathroom fan, I couldn't find a truly silent one...

If the OP wants to challenge the council, it would depend on the actual notice. If informal, then he simply writes to the council and ask what justification they have for the demand to take remedial action. It could be that the council wants an easy solution so they can inflate their success statistics...

If a formal or statutory notice, then he needs to put his case before a magistrate and I'd suggest that maybe fitting a silent fan would be far less hassle....

 

[The Byre]

I can't find an easy to understand explanation online,

Wikipedia and Sound-on-Sound magazine have various articles on volume and perceived volumes.

It is important to remember that the dB (i.e. tenth of a bel - named after the inventor of the telephone) is NOT a measure of anything, but a comparative value expressed as a logarithmic value.

The fact that the dB is a logarithmic value, makes it extremely useful for audio, as our hearing is also roughly speaking logarithmic, i.e. ten times the energy gives us double the perceived volume. So a 10-Watt amplifier is twice as loud as a 1W amplifier.

When measuring noise, we are referring to 0dB as the average threshold of hearing for a young and healthy person. Roughly speaking, the volume of a small mosquito one meter away.

We call this value 0dB-phone and it is usually measured with a filter weighting of A or C. C-weighting is an approximation of human hearing and A-weighting filters off the low frequencies. In H&S issues, the higher the pitch, the more damaging the sound level is to the ears, so when testing noise levels in factories or discos, we tend to use A-weighting. There are also B and D weightings.

If you want to read up on this, Wiki has articles on noise weightings and equal volume curves (AKA Fletcher-Munson curves).

The decibel can refer to absolutely any signal value, for example dBV is the scale where 1 volt is 0dB, dBm is a scale of 1mW across a 600-Ohm resistance = 0.775V. There are many, many decibel scales for all kinds of applications.

Frequency and perceived volume makes all this tidy mathematics somewhat cloudy, as we are at our most sensitive at between 3kHz and 4kHz (kilohertz = thousands of cycles per second), but are also alarmed at infra-sonic (below 20Hz) frequencies, as we perceive these with our balance organs.

Older people become alarmed by infra-sound, as their balance organs are more easily effected (big and complex subject!) and younger people enjoy low frequencies, as it gives them an adrenalin rush. It is also the reason I crank up the volume on my twin Genelec sub-bass drivers when Nicki Minaj is played on MTV.

As we get older, we get less tolerant of low-pitched unwanted noise, e.g. throbbing of fans, wind-farms, heavy trucks and so on, as we are more sensitive to disturbances in our perception of balance, which is also in the ear.

The older I get, the more I want to hear Nicki Minaj.

 

[UKSBD]

The older I get, the more I want to hear Nicki Minaj.

Hear or Watch?

 

[garyk]

The older I get, the more I want to hear Nicki Minaj.

You have just destroyed one of the most useful and helpful replies with that single comment

 

[The Byre]

Rubbish! I enhanced my explanation of the way we hear sounds, by also telling you what you should be listening to!

"My anaconda don't want none, if you ain't got buns, hun."

What beautiful words! Never mind Keats, Shakespeare and Goethe. Go with Minaj!

 

[Jaflan]

I have just found this thread. Is it really possible to get a silent industrial fan?
A shop adjoining my property has just installed an industrial fan high up on a wall. The fan is attached to a cryogenic chamber (the shop is a beauty parlour). The fan is very noisy, a loud constant rumble - I can hear it inside my house. It is driving me crazy. I have complained to the council, but don't hold out much hope of any help there.
I live in a Victorian Terrace house and we have a very small garden approx. 25 ft. long. I have spoken to the shop owner - all he said was he had a business to run and he wanted to make a success of it. What can be done to make this fan 'silent'.

 

[The Byre]

Is it really possible to get a silent industrial fan?

Yes. See some of the previous replies!

 

[Jaflan]

Unfortunately this large high speed fan has already been installed high up on an exterior wall. I understand that this is the worse possible location regarding noise emissions

 

[The Byre]

Yes, indeed it is. Sound travels downwards very readily and also is amplified by the ground below, firstly through reflection as it bounces off the ground and possibly surrounding buildings - and secondly, by the pressure-zone effect (aka boundary effect) in which the audio pressure waves reflected, meet those travelling towards the surface and thereby double the pressure at that point.

Don't put up with this - make a formal written (never email!) complaint to your council, after telephoning and simply asking to whom the letter should be addressed.

Also, high-speed fans are the very worst offenders for making a noise. As stated before, there are dozens and dozens of silent commercial fans on the market.

 

[Jaflan]

Thank you again. The shop owner has said he will try to sound-proof the fan. Although given where it is sited, I am not sure how effective any sound-proofing will be. Even a background hum can be very annoying. I will contact the council and keep a close check on sound levels, especially as the shop owner told me this afternoon that he will be installing another fan - air conditioning for the beauty shop.

 

[GosportRosa]

I enter here some nine years after the original thread and as an owner of a polite, neighbourly and really considerate family home, close to two other equally considerate separate family homes in a conservation, residential road in Gosport, all desperately depressed about a care home's massive and newly installed kitchen extractor fan droning noise. The new fan is industrial in size and pre-exists the care home director's resident room expansion extension plans (which included no extractor fan detail information but which were approved by planning department). We have been liaising since mid-July 2024 with environmental health, building regulations department and planning departments in our local council. The care home owner is not living in England and accuses us by email of lying about the impact his newly installed kitchen extractor fan noise intrusion is having on our daily lives. The noise from the fan resembles the noise one experiences when exiting an airport lounge to board a flight - ie that intense aircraft motor-running drone. It goes on for most of the day - from 7.30 am to 7.30 pm. The result is that three families can't enjoy their gardens and certainly can't open their windows. Silent kitchen extractor fans appear to be easily achievable. We are at our wits' end, faced with EH annual vacation absence and, to be frank, incomprehension that this distressing droning during daylight hours is being permitted to happen. We are required to maintain diarised notes on the noise each day, regardless of the fact that the noise is a given - every day, seven days a week, 7.30 am to 7.30 pm. Please, if this is read, provide us with some hope. We bought our house in 2013, prior to the care home owner making his extension plans. His existing fan in 2013 caused no noise pollution. His current, newly erected fan in 2024 is noise pollution at its worst. He hasn't offered to meet with our three properties. We are "nice" folk. Seemingly, prey for unkind business practice, it would seem. Would anyone be able to give us some hope? We bought our house in good faith. We are on a busy traffic main road in Gosport - we expect traffic noise. We live near to a holiday let that has been permitted to house up to 26 people for each visit. But this extractor fan noise has been inflicted on three properties in a conservation area in 2024. The incredibly large extractor fan causing the noise pollution postdates our family house purchase (2013) and two other families' home purchases (bought their properties over twenty years ago). We are in utter despair. Please would someone provide us with some advice that doesn't resemble a George Orwell narrative. Thank you in advance.

 

[BubbaWY]

There are strict planning conditions in relation to noise (and odours, a related issue), especially when located in a residential area. It is a council matter and as a startee, I would be contacting your local councillors. They can then escalate it with the Councils planning department/environment health who will be able to come and carry out some noise level measurements.

It might even be worth purchasing one of the following, and keep a log of measurements.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/decibel-meter/s?k=decibel+meter

 

[GosportRosa]

There are strict planning conditions in relation to noise (and odours, a related issue), especially when located in a residential area. It is a council matter and as a startee, I would be contacting your local councillors. They can then escalate it with the Councils planning department/environment health who will be able to come and carry out some noise level measurements.

It might even be worth purchasing one of the following, and keep a log of measurements.

Thank you so much for your advice. We have done all the above in terms of involving the relevant local councillor, planning division, building regulations division and environmental health department. We remain in limbo with the noise (nearing two months shortly) because the council is having to field annual vacation absences and, in tandem with those delays, has confirmed to us that Environmental Health Dept is weighed down with work. We will follow your link above to investigate whether the item might help expedite evidence for our issues. Really appreciate you taking time to connect.

 

[BubbaWY]

One further thing worth checking in the meantime is to go on your local council's website and the planning section. You suggest that they didnt get planning permission for the extractor fan - they should have done so its worth just double checking. As part of the planning conditions, it will state what the permitted dB limit is. If you get a dB meter, you can then check if they are exceeding this limit. I think for a continuous sound, its around 24dB, which isnt much at all.

 

[fisicx]

Chuck a brick into the fan?

 

[peterrepair]

If you suffer actual losses and your mental health, also document that (go to a doctor etc.) and tell the council you are preparing for legal action against them. At this point would be good to find a solicitor.
The excuses they give seem like they are just lazy and don't want to do anything and hope you will give up.
File a complaint as well etc.