Restaurant extractor fan audible from garden

lapaillade90

Anyanka1 said:

Good for you, lapaillade90 and thanks for the update.  Please let us know what you decide to do and the outcome as it would be so nice to hear someone actually obtained a result in the fight against noise, for once.  I, for myself, look for no victory.

Quick update if anyone is interested. A neighbour and I have raised this with the council and an Environmental Health officer has contacted the takeaway and instructed them to clean the fan within 21 days (turns out they'd lied when they said they did it recently, so hopefully the horrible noise is just due to a build-up of grease). If that doesn't solve the problem, it'll be escalated further.

Reading back - a lot of very unsympathetic comments on here (amongst the supportive ones)! A restaurant has to have a fan by law, and by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road. Thankfully the council agree with me

london21

lapaillade90 said:

Following up on the responses above, I've spoken to a couple of the neighbours and it turns out that the sound of the fan was previously raised with the council, who agreed that it was too loud and requested the restaurant to resolve the issue.

Sounds like they temporarily fixed it but under new management it's got worse again. Have also spoken to a couple of fan engineers who have confirmed the fan appears to be faulty and needs to be repaired/replaced.

Reassuring to know I'm not being completely unreasonable

Good there is a potential solution.
Personally would not like to be near a resturatnt or a main road. 

Irishpearce26

lapaillade90 said:

Anyanka1 said:

Good for you, lapaillade90 and thanks for the update.  Please let us know what you decide to do and the outcome as it would be so nice to hear someone actually obtained a result in the fight against noise, for once.  I, for myself, look for no victory.

Quick update if anyone is interested. A neighbour and I have raised this with the council and an Environmental Health officer has contacted the takeaway and instructed them to clean the fan within 21 days (turns out they'd lied when they said they did it recently, so hopefully the horrible noise is just due to a build-up of grease). If that doesn't solve the problem, it'll be escalated further.

Reading back - a lot of very unsympathetic comments on here (amongst the supportive ones)! A restaurant has to have a fan by law, and by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road. Thankfully the council agree with me

I admire your cause. However , what if they clean the fan and it doesn't change your perception of the noise but is still within the legal decibel limits?

Hopefully it will but by all accounts it may make minimal difference to you but will satisfy the council.

AdrianC

Page 1

lapaillade90 said:

   It's not oppressively loud (as in, it's not like we have to shout over it or anything)
...
I took a reading which came out at about 45dB, but not sure how accurate that is

Page 2

lapaillade90 said:

 ...a fan that is audible all day three doors down...

Page 3

lapaillade90 said:

 For what it's worth, I've stood at the back of the commercial property (I'd guess about 10m from the fan, which is located high up), and got a reading of ~50dB.

...but by page 6...

lapaillade90 said:

...
by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road.

Ally_E.

So it is actually very loud and not just you being pedantic like so many people here were trying to make it sound.

gwynlas

You might consider installing a water feature in your garden to distract your hearing fan or any other external noise

Barny1979

Ally_E. said:

So it is actually very loud and not just you being pedantic like so many people here were trying to make it sound.

Probably as the correct information wasn’t proffered in the first place.

lookstraightahead

lapaillade90 said:

Anyanka1 said:

Good for you, lapaillade90 and thanks for the update.  Please let us know what you decide to do and the outcome as it would be so nice to hear someone actually obtained a result in the fight against noise, for once.  I, for myself, look for no victory.

Quick update if anyone is interested. A neighbour and I have raised this with the council and an Environmental Health officer has contacted the takeaway and instructed them to clean the fan within 21 days (turns out they'd lied when they said they did it recently, so hopefully the horrible noise is just due to a build-up of grease). If that doesn't solve the problem, it'll be escalated further.

Reading back - a lot of very unsympathetic comments on here (amongst the supportive ones)! A restaurant has to have a fan by law, and by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road. Thankfully the council agree with me

Glad there's progress, op, hope you get it sorted.

Sometimes unhelpful comments make you stop and think - and people have different perspectives. Often they're not unhelpful, people just say what you don't want to hear.

if I viewed a house by a fan,  I'd expect noise and I wouldn't do it. I've just bought a really old house so I won't be complaining when I find old house related problems.

lapaillade90

Irishpearce26 said:

lapaillade90 said:

Anyanka1 said:

Good for you, lapaillade90 and thanks for the update.  Please let us know what you decide to do and the outcome as it would be so nice to hear someone actually obtained a result in the fight against noise, for once.  I, for myself, look for no victory.

Quick update if anyone is interested. A neighbour and I have raised this with the council and an Environmental Health officer has contacted the takeaway and instructed them to clean the fan within 21 days (turns out they'd lied when they said they did it recently, so hopefully the horrible noise is just due to a build-up of grease). If that doesn't solve the problem, it'll be escalated further.

Reading back - a lot of very unsympathetic comments on here (amongst the supportive ones)! A restaurant has to have a fan by law, and by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road. Thankfully the council agree with me

I admire your cause. However , what if they clean the fan and it doesn't change your perception of the noise but is still within the legal decibel limits?

Hopefully it will but by all accounts it may make minimal difference to you but will satisfy the council.

If they clean the fan and it doesn't help then the council will come out and do a full noise impact assessment. Obviously if they then say it's not a statutory nuisance there's not much I can do, but at least I've exhausted all options. I sent a video of the fan to the Environmental Health office and he agreed it's not making a "normal" noise, so that does reassure me that something can be done. (For what it's worth, the law doesn't just consider the volume but also the nature of the noise, so a "tonal" noise at 45dB is considered more intrusive than a broadband noise at the same level).

AdrianC said:

Page 1

lapaillade90 said:

   It's not oppressively loud (as in, it's not like we have to shout over it or anything)
...
I took a reading which came out at about 45dB, but not sure how accurate that is

Page 2

lapaillade90 said:

 ...a fan that is audible all day three doors down...

Page 3

lapaillade90 said:

 For what it's worth, I've stood at the back of the commercial property (I'd guess about 10m from the fan, which is located high up), and got a reading of ~50dB.

...but by page 6...

lapaillade90 said:

...
by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road.

It's 45dB three doors down (in my garden), 50dB at the back fence of the restaurant, and still audible (obviously not as loud) halfway down the road, so 50/60m away. Not sure what your point is, but hope that helps 

lookstraightahead said:

lapaillade90 said:

Anyanka1 said:

Good for you, lapaillade90 and thanks for the update.  Please let us know what you decide to do and the outcome as it would be so nice to hear someone actually obtained a result in the fight against noise, for once.  I, for myself, look for no victory.

Quick update if anyone is interested. A neighbour and I have raised this with the council and an Environmental Health officer has contacted the takeaway and instructed them to clean the fan within 21 days (turns out they'd lied when they said they did it recently, so hopefully the horrible noise is just due to a build-up of grease). If that doesn't solve the problem, it'll be escalated further.

Reading back - a lot of very unsympathetic comments on here (amongst the supportive ones)! A restaurant has to have a fan by law, and by law that fan shouldn't be audible half way down the road. Thankfully the council agree with me

Glad there's progress, op, hope you get it sorted.

Sometimes unhelpful comments make you stop and think - and people have different perspectives. Often they're not unhelpful, people just say what you don't want to hear.

if I viewed a house by a fan,  I'd expect noise and I wouldn't do it. I've just bought a really old house so I won't be complaining when I find old house related problems.

Thanks, and I don't disagree with the final point. I used to live by a station and never once complained about the trains! 

I completely understand restaurants need fans, but we live far enough away that it shouldn't be so intrusive if it were functioning properly (as the council have now confirmed). We barely noticed it when we came to view the property several months ago, and the next door neighbours have confirmed that it's gotten worse in the past few weeks so unfortunately it's just one of those things rather than a lack of due diligence.

Anyway, appreciate all the replies, and hopefully it does get sorted.

stressedout45

Crikey.  I have not read the entire thread but get the gist of it.. I hope you never want to sell your house otherwise you are going to have to declare that you have gone to environmental health! Personally I would have just left it and excepted it is one of those things of living in a built-up area with businesses nearby.