Reducing noise from petrol hedge trimmers

Mistral001

My petrol hedge trimmers are very loud and l looking at ways to reduce the noise that they produce to avoid annoying my neighbours.  I am thinking of making a small additional silencer to attach to the exhaust.  I have a basic design in mind which involves quite a bit of metal cutting and welding, but is there another easier way of doing this?  

pbartlett

i suspect that if you really want to reduce noise then invest in a rechargeable battery hedgetrimmer - have a look on amazon.

CoastingHatbox

Have your neighbours complained about the noise?
Have you asked them to see if they mind the noise?

Mistral001

CoastingHatbox said:

Have your neighbours complained about the noise?
Have you asked them to see if they mind the noise?

Answers as follows:
No.
No.

CoastingHatbox

Well it might be worth asking before expending any time and effort with this?

The hedge trimmer engine will be designed to work with a given value for exhaust back pressure. I don't really know that much about it, but I'd imagine any alteration to this value will affect the way the hedge trimmers perform.

Mistral001

CoastingHatbox said:

Well it might be worth asking before expending any time and effort with this?

The hedge trimmer engine will be designed to work with a given value for exhaust back pressure. I don't really know that much about it, but I'd imagine any alteration to this value will affect the way the hedge trimmers perform.

I know about back pressure and how it affects the engine's performance.  My first option was to use an old silencer from my old  petrol trimmer but it looks fairly compact and hence will probably have densely spaced baffles which would affect the back pressure too much.  I suppose it is a case of trying it and finding out.  

John_Gray

If it ain't broke...

[Deleted User]

Garden strimmers are cutting hedge technology 😂

John_Gray

Deleted_User said:

Garden strimmers are cutting hedge technology 😂

That would be an excellent pun - if it were not factually incorrect! 

rmg1

Wouldn't they be more grass-roots technology??


I'll get my coat

Nilrem

I very much doubt that any silencer you add to a hedge trimmer or similar (usually small 2 stroke engine) will make much difference to the actual noise, but could very adversely affect the performance of the engine, it's reliability and possibly life span.
They're usually already silenced about as much as can be managed with the performance needed as any improvement would be a big seller given how loud they are when you're using them (and almost all of them, from the sub £70 B&Q own brand to the £500+ Makita/Ryobi pro models are around the same noise rating so it's not a cost saving thing).

About all you can do is try and use it at sensible times, I try to avoid using mine before about lunch time and not after about 5pm, that way i'm hopefully not annoying late risers/night shift workers too much, and not running it during people's tea time.

I've actually just bought a new battery powered strimmer and hedge trimmer (to go with the mower) to largely replace my older petrol ones because I personally got fed up of the noise and pulling the cord every couple of minutes.

To be honest, the noise from hedge trimmers etc whilst loud isn't too bad if you're not directly outside someone's window when working with them.