Ecodan Air Source Heat Pumps - Help!

tash0201

Hi! Wonder if anyone can help....Our neighbour wants to put 10 x Ecodan Air Source Heat Pumps on an outrigger next door to our property. They will be situated 4 meters from our boundary and approximately 5 meters away from our bedroom windows. The literature for these say the noise they create is 49dB (within 1m of the pump), but obviously that is for one unit - not ten. Is there anybody out there that can tell me what the Regulations would be regarding this noise. Any help, advice or information regarding this would be gratefully appreciated!
Thank you!

PS. The same neighbour is, at the same time, planning on putting 10 of these units the other side of us too - at a distance of 9 meters from our bedroom windows. Help!

A_fiend_for_life

Just a thought - noise aside - how much money will the neighbour be spending on all this? Has the neighbour already modified their property by improving insulation and installing larger radiators / underfloor heating?

Wouldn't he / she / they be better off looking at funding a larger scale scheme in some other renewables where funding is more closely matched to what the funder(s) invest? I'm not sure what funding you get for air source heat pumps but I suspect it is not as good as something more commercial scale. This would need some thorough researching of the options available.

For example a wind farm owner might find it easier to install another turbine and match funding as one community did in Fintry in Scotland.

There's a fair bit of leg work involved I'm sure but it may well be a better investment in the longer term.

As I say just a thought.

Cardew

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

Just a thought - noise aside - how much money will the neighbour be spending on all this? Has the neighbour already modified their property by improving insulation and installing larger radiators / underfloor heating?

Wouldn't he / she / they be better off looking at funding a larger scale scheme in some other renewables where funding is more closely matched to what the funder(s) invest? I'm not sure what funding you get for air source heat pumps but I suspect it is not as good as something more commercial scale. This would need some thorough researching of the options available.

For example a wind farm owner might find it easier to install another turbine and match funding as one community did in Fintry in Scotland.

There's a fair bit of leg work involved I'm sure but it may well be a better investment in the longer term.

As I say just a thought.

Presumably these 10 units are for separate units, like a block of flats?

IMO it certainly will be a noise problem for the OP.

If you look in the utilities section(search for ecodan) there is a poster who has fitted such a system and he was worried about the noise affecting his neighbours.

nrmacg

The sound level is for the entire unit, they come in 5, 8.5 and 14kW sizes by the way.

49dB at 1m is not loud, less than a fridge for instance.

tash0201 wrote: »

Hi! Wonder if anyone can help....Our neighbour wants to put 10 x Ecodan Air Source Heat Pumps on an outrigger next door to our property. They will be situated 4 meters from our boundary and approximately 5 meters away from our bedroom windows. The literature for these say the noise they create is 49dB (within 1m of the pump), but obviously that is for one unit - not ten. Is there anybody out there that can tell me what the Regulations would be regarding this noise. Any help, advice or information regarding this would be gratefully appreciated!
Thank you!

PS. The same neighbour is, at the same time, planning on putting 10 of these units the other side of us too - at a distance of 9 meters from our bedroom windows. Help!

Cardew

nrmacg wrote: »

The sound level is for the entire unit, they come in 5, 8.5 and 14kW sizes by the way.

49dB at 1m is not loud, less than a fridge for instance.

Below is a quote from the Air source Heat Pump thread(by samtheman1k) who has an Ecodan system fitted.

The main drawback is the noise generated by the HP itself. It is 49dB according to the specs, but I would say that it is about the same as a modern washing machine on spin cycle. This may or may not be a problem depending on where you live. The HP needs to be as close to your house as possible to prevent heat losses through your pipes, so you can't hide it at the back of your garden! However, it is hard to hear through a double glazed window, so shouldn't be too much of a problem. However, your neighbours may not be so sympathetic. There are no regs AFAIK on siting a HP as the main problem is the noise and that is already covered by the normal environmental noise regs. If you mounted it on your boundary next to your neighbours windows, then they may well complain. In Ireland, they are suggesting that there should be a 5m distance between any HP and a boundary, so we used that as a guide for England, but our garden is only about 7m wide, so doesn't actually quite meet that but we've done our best to site it in the least annoying place. We haven't had any complaints yet, but only time will tell. As mentioned, if it is a good few meters away, and your neighbours have double glazing, it shouldn't be a problem, although I'm not offering any guarantees!

albyota

Low Level Examples
Threshold of hearing: 0dB SPL
Rustling leaves / whisper = 10dB SPL
Recording studio = 15dB SPL
Interior of house at night = 20dB SPL
Interior of house during day = 30dB SPL

A quiet auditorium. 30 - 40dB SPL

Mitsubishi Ecodan at 5 Metres = 42dB SPL
Mitsubishi Ecodan at 1 Metre = 49dB SPL

Background music in a cafe, bar or restaurant. 40 - 60db SPL
Typical conversation levels (from the listener's position). 60 - 70dB SPL

Medium Level
Office = 50dB SPL
Normal conversation (1m) = 60dB SPL
Interior of car = 70dB SPL
Urban street = 80dB SPL

High Level
Truck passing (15m) = 90dB SPL
Shouting (1.5m) = 100dB SPL
Club = 110dB+ SPL
Jet taking off (60m) = 120dB SPL
Explosion = 130dB SPL
Windows shatter above 160dB SPL
Space shuttle taking off (17m) = 215 dB SPL
Any SPL over 200dB can cause death.

I also have the Ecodan Fitted....if it were very noisy....it would have been removed before now....been fitted a year now (installed Oct 08)

albyota

I would say that if all ten were operating at the same time it would be slightly higher, perhaps 55 / 58 dB, as a 3dB gain is twice the volume, however it would be sensible if the units were timed to operate at staggered times during quiet periods i.e. water heating in the early hours, but by applying diversity to the heating cycles e.g. probably only 3 or 4 units would be operating at any one time, therefore not much more than one unit......think of it like this, how noisy would it be if one car is left running outside your house, and if there was ten cars would it be ten times louder?..... not really! but with the different frequencies it would be more noticable. hope that helps.

A_fiend_for_life

Cardew wrote: »

Presumably these 10 units are for separate units, like a block of flats?

IMO it certainly will be a noise problem for the OP.

If you look in the utilities section(search for ecodan) there is a poster who has fitted such a system and he was worried about the noise affecting his neighbours.

I think you're right though I didn't address the noise issue in my post more whether it ASHP was the way to go considering how much the neighbour might be investing.

Back on track.

There's a simple calculator here:

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/adding-decibel-d_63.html

(see under 'Adding Equal Sound Pressure Levels)

For 10 at 49 dB it gives 59 dB.

It is not clear from such a simple equation how that works in practice though. For example I'd have though a cold night, high demand (?), reverberation and peak noise would need to be taken into account too as well as differences between individual machines and distances. Oh and in stereo that would be annoying even at a low level depending on the focus.

I suspect the above equation might be fine in theory but could fall short in practice.

It's also not clear what 49 dB refers to eg testbench, peak, some average for an install. A practical range might be useful.