Noisy neighbours

[billythered]

We rent a business unit, 2 story offices. Downstairs is our order packing area and upstairs our offices. We have neighbours on one side and very thin walls. They are a call centre with constant calls coming in, we hear loud talking all day long, sometimes we can hear every word of a call. We have spoken to them before and they have basically said it is not that bad and just general noise. But it bothers me, lots. I have my desk as far away from the communial wall as possible and a radio on my desk and I can still hear voices. What I can't work out is if I should just put up with it or whether I am right to be annoyed by it. Downstairs is also noisy, perhaps more so, and I have no issue with this as no "paperwork" type work is done down there. Am I petty or not? Thanks, Billy.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Two things you can do, depending on if you want to cause bad feeling:

1/ Have a bookcase up against the wall, filled with books, that will help block out the noise;
2/ Speak to the environmental health department at the local authority.

If the neighbour says "it's not that bad" have you invited them in to hear it for themselves? Sometimes people don't realise just how loud they are being. We're in a shared building and you'd be surprised at how loudly people will talk on their mobile phone in the corridor directly outside our office door - so I can hear them booking their doctor's appointment, discussing a client's financial situation, etc.

Mind you, can you be sure you're packing area which, as you state is noisy, cannot be heard next door? Just because the neighbours haven't mentioned it doesn't mean it's not happening. And so they might just be thinking "If they can be loud so can we".

 

[billythered]

Thanks for your response Ashley.

We have bookcases up against the wall already and a sleeping bag over the locked door between the rooms. It does not do much.

I was thinking of asking the landlord to come and listen but I think they will probably mention it to the call centre so they will know what we are planing. The same would happen if I asked the manager to listen, he would tell them to be quiet. I might try and catch a manager walking past and drag them in.

We left another office building cos car sales men would use the corridor to take sales calls, loudly, outside our room. We complained to the owner who said he has asked them to stop but they wont. He basically had no control over them and I guess he needed their rent.

Our packing area is quiet it is the call centre next door that are noisy downstairs as well as up. Sorry I was not clear. We don't mind the noise downstairs as it is not a concentrating on emails kind of area.

Some days I hardly notice it, others it bugs me to hell. Sigh....

 

[Ashley_Price]

If you don't phone calls yourself too often, then you could always wear headphones.

I used to own a call answering service and it was open plan, I was in the same room as the telephonists so you can imagine how noisy that was. So, when I wanted to concentrate I put on headphones and some music.

But noise is always going to be something of a problem when you are in a shared building. I asked to be moved upstairs in our current one, because the rooms on the ground floor (except my old office) were hired out for exhibitions and events, meaning I had to deal with people carrying stuff, shouting to each other during the set up, banging doors. There were times even with headphones on I couldn't hear what was playing through the headphones because the noise was so bad.

 

[billythered]

Headphones! Great idea!

Once a month the maintainance man comes round so I will grab him and ask him what he thinks next time I see him. Then I will have an imparcial opinion.

Thanks again.

 

[Ashley_Price]

For headphones either in-ear or "over the ear" (like DJ headphones) to block out the noise. At first it feels like you're under a duvet, but they really do work.

 

[billythered]

I play music from my iPhone so I will use the ones that came with it. Thanks again.

 

[Pish_Pash]

If this was driving me potty (& I know how noise can), I'd be inclined to do this as an experiment.....

Put some contact mics on the wall, screw some loudspeakers on the wall facing into the wall. Invert the signal from the contact mic & drives the speakers ....this should reduce the amount of noise (it is essentially what noise cancelling headphones do)

 

[AllUpHere]

If this was driving me potty (& I know how noise can), I'd be inclined to do this as an experiment.....

Put some contact mics on the wall, screw some loudspeakers on the wall facing into the wall. Invert the signal from the contact mic & drives the speakers ....this should reduce the amount of noise (it is essentially what noise cancelling headphones do)

Is that the same principle that kills the bass if you wire speakers up so the phasing is wrong / opposite?

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

If you speak nicely to your landlord, they may agree to put a layer of soundproofing up against the wall. It may or may not be effective though, depending upon the quality and construction of the ceiling and floor (ie: if a suspended ceiling, probably won't work).

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Write a formal letter of complaint to the call centre company and copy it to the landlord, stating the problem what you have tried to do in reducing the noise level but to no avail. Point out that unless action is made to reduce significantly the noise you will have no option but to contact public health

You could also ask other companies in the building if they are effected and get them to write similar letters

 

[paulears]

Noise cancellation is NOT a case of a contact mic on the wall and screwing a few speakers up. It won't work, will probably break into uncontrolled feedback and fails on a number of acoustics theories. Transmission through the wall is different from transmission through air - so the wall its;f becomes a component in the problem. The landlord is unlikely to help, so if you don't mind spending money, then you simply build a stud partition suspended floor and ceiling but not to the acoustically weak wall. This assumes the noise is coming through the wall, and not through the floor or ceiling. The air gap and the sheet material do the job. In simple terms, to stop the sound you need mass - plasterboard - maybe two layers of 9mm or 12mm will do wonders.

However, I wonder if you just need to 'noise up' - if your office is quiet and they have 6 people all speaking, that's a big difference. sound treatment can be heavy, complex and eats into your space - make sure you really need it first.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Noise cancellation is NOT a case of a contact mic on the wall and screwing a few speakers up. It won't work, will probably break into uncontrolled feedback and fails on a number of acoustics theories. Transmission through the wall is different from transmission through air - so the wall its;f becomes a component in the problem..

I disagree...the wall in this case (being thin) is acting like a big sound resonator. The only sound he hears on his side of the wall, is the sound that has transmitted through the wall....so the wall becomes the focus of trying to eliminate the sound.

Example: If you strum an electric guitar without it plugged in you can barely hear it......push the guitar headstock up against a wooden door (or a stud partition wall), & the volume increases significantly.

If you invert a signal an feed it back at the original signal, you get cancellation (not complete cancellation but significant cancellation), anti noise in the picture below can be taken to mean an inverted signal.....

You won't get complete cancellation (becuase not all frequencies will be perfectly aligned in phase, but you will get some cancellation)....but it might be enough to make it bearable.

 

[paulears]

Some of the theory is right but totally ignores the rest. Noise cancelling works by complete cancellation within a small area - you cannot excite a wall panel in this manner, because your speaker is a point source and the amplitude and time alignment changes as the speaker's contribution moves away from the speaker. The wall that is transmitting the sound does it from a much, much larger area - so unless you could replicate the entire wall's contribution, cancellation is incomplete, and you actually get something called comb filtering where some frequencies cancel and others get louder! The only effective method of preventing sound entering a space is by adding mass, and airspace. The basics of sound treatment and control - NOT trying to get phase cancellation. In your diagram, it's accurate - two loudspeakers out of phase, but you have one huge surface and one small speaker. It won't work, and of course even if it did, the speakers would produce noise equally as loud as the transmission through the wall. Loudspeaker cabinets do not just radiate from the front. Flawed physics. If you read some acoustics books you'll see how the professionals do it - and they DON'T use speakers.

 

[Pish_Pash]

It will cancel some audio (because you are using the wall as a pseudo speaker cone that has phase inverted compared to the original signal)...& like I say, if I were climbing the wall due to neighbourly noise, I'd certainly have a pop.

A bonus is that if it doesn't work, you can transmit some dub bass straight into their call centre. That's a festival of win in my books....give them a morning of that & all of a sudden you have some negotiating currency...... "So then, let's talk...."

 

[silvermusic]

We use to use egg trays stuck on the wall to deaden sound when I was young, the more layers the better. Don't know if a modern day equivalent is possible where you are?

 

[IanG]

An in-depth explanation of the reasons why it won't work and you still want to try, confusing.

Those egg boxes are still available, they're just free range these days.