Noise, care or not?

[ChrisBailey]

I have a clarke se18c200 in my dads garage. Its going in my garage after the lockdown.

When we used to run it (probly 10 years ago now) i remember it being quite loud. Ive seen a few videos on people building enclosures and stuff to reduce the noise. Im debating if its worth the effort.
Would you bother or just put on some ear defenders.

Its not the loudest thing in the garage, angle grinder is a fair bit louder and that gets used quite alot.

Dont have tons of room either.

 

[brightspark]

i dont bother and its a twin set up i only wear earmufs for high pitched stuff like saws and breakers

 

[RWD3M]

Wear ear protection, I SAID, WEAR EAR PROTECTION!

I didn't when I was younger and I'm paying the price now. Tinnitus is very unpleasant.

Whether you need to add some sort of muffling is probably more down to whether you have neighbours. I have and so I moved my machine into my workshop and it can barely be heard outside now. And this pleases my neighbours

I see noise as a real problem like light pollution, and it's not getting any better.

Rant over. I SAID, RANT OVER!

 

[Barking Mat]

What? What did you say?

Build a plywood soundproof box around it, with ventilation, possibly forced. (Fan)

 

[Mikes]

With noise exposure, the damage done to hearing is dependant upon the duration so you really need to know how long you are going to be in the garage with it running before you can make a true judgement. There's plenty of info available to give limits and times but for them to make any sense, you will need to find the acoustic data for the compressor which given that it's a Clarke should be readily available.
Probably just find that in reality, some disposable ear plugs will give you adequate protection for hobby type working.

 

[Turbo]

Fitting a decent air intake can significantly reduce the noise, maybe even run it out through the wall. I fitted a car oil filter to mine & it made a big difference.

 

[ChrisBailey]

I guess it will be used infrequently, its just for hobby really.
I may have to reduce the noise for the neighbours though. I have the garage door open most of the time.

I think i will try out the air intske mods first as I dont really have room to build an acoustic enclosure for the thing.

I did debate putting a pit in the garage and dropping the compressor in that. Big job though and I think emptying the tank would be a right pain.

 

[fizzy]

Beware of enclosures - compressors need to be kept cool.

 

[Longhorn6120]

I've been in the hearing health industry for over 20 years so I thought I'd chip in and put some figures out there for you to think about.

Mikes is right, noise works on a dosing principal, so the longer you are exposed to it the more damaging it is, but not many people realise how soon it gets to be a problem.

Health and Safety at work rules state that in noise levels above 80dB hearing protection should be available on request. In levels over 85dB hearing protection must be work by law. Now, what you do in your own time in your own garage is up to you, but from these figures we can infer that 80dB or lower is safe for an 8hr working day. If you double the noise level you must half the time exposed, but here's the real kicker; dB SPL (sound pressure level) is a logarithmic scale, so to double the noise level you only need to go up by 3dB.

So, 83dB for 4 hours, 86dB for 2 hours, 89dB for 1 hour, on so on. As you can see, it really doesn't take too many extra dBs to get very dangerous.

Lots of modern power tools have the dB SPL rating on a label somewhere or in the tech spec so with the above figures you can work out approximately how long you should be exposing yourself to that noise without protection. If in doubt and in possession of a smart phone you can download a dB SPL meter app and take a snapshot. I use DeciBel X Pro which seems to be very good (no affiliation), but there are plenty of free ones out there.

 

[fizzy]

I've been in the hearing health industry for over 20 years so I thought I'd chip in and put some figures out there for you to think about.

Mikes is right, noise works on a dosing principal, so the longer you are exposed to it the more damaging it is, but not many people realise how soon it gets to be a problem.

Health and Safety at work rules state that in noise levels above 80dB hearing protection should be available on request. In levels over 85dB hearing protection must be work by law. Now, what you do in your own time in your own garage is up to you, but from these figures we can infer that 80dB or lower is safe for an 8hr working day. If you double the noise level you must half the time exposed, but here's the real kicker; dB SPL (sound pressure level) is a logarithmic scale, so to double the noise level you only need to go up by 3dB.

So, 83dB for 4 hours, 86dB for 2 hours, 89dB for 1 hour, on so on. As you can see, it really doesn't take too many extra dBs to get very dangerous.

Lots of modern power tools have the dB SPL rating on a label somewhere or in the tech spec so with the above figures you can work out approximately how long you should be exposing yourself to that noise without protection. If in doubt and in possession of a smart phone you can download a dB SPL meter app and take a snapshot. I use DeciBel X Pro which seems to be very good (no affiliation), but there are plenty of free ones out there.

How do VUE cinemas get away with deafening people - you would think they would be more careful these days. Several times I had to walk out from a film. Complaints achieved nothing!

 

[Longhorn6120]

The same way nightclubs do; it’s a recreational activity and therefore considered optional.

However staff working at such venues are (or at least should be) subject to the same health and safety at work rules as anyone else.

 

[ChrisBailey]

Ear defenders it is then.
Im in the habbit of using them for grinding, but never really considered the compressor.

 

[ronan]

I bought a small single phase compressor years ago and the noise off it was truely horrendous, put me off using it unless really needed. Picked up a much larger one and built an enclosure outside and even though its not insulated, the noise is much less.

 

[Melvyn Best]

If you put any compressor in an enclosure make sure it has plenty of air flow , it can and will cause the compressor to seize. I put mine into an enclosure made from louvred panels which helped with noise but allowed plenty of airflow after seeing a mates compressor that had seized due to lack of airflow

 

[cocker]

My 200l compressor was to loud to be in the garage with it running , I mounted it on some 6" timber blocks and it's quiet enough now .

 

[malcolm]

Health and Safety at work rules state that in noise levels above 80dB hearing protection should be available on request. In levels over 85dB hearing protection must be work by law. Now, what you do in your own time in your own garage is up to you, but from these figures we can infer that 80dB or lower is safe for an 8hr working day. If you double the noise level you must half the time exposed, but here's the real kicker; dB SPL (sound pressure level) is a logarithmic scale, so to double the noise level you only need to go up by 3dB.

Being pedantic - a doubling of sound pressure level takes 6dB. It's doubling sound power that only needs 3dB. Sound pressure tends to be used to say what the noise level is at a certain place, while sound power is more useful for calculations when you want to predict what the pressure level will be elsewhere or figure out if your speaker is going to blow up. It's useful to have the calcs to make them into pascals pinned on the wall at work as you can just add or multiply them and then push them back to dB.

Wouldn't argue with anything else - and the exposure times are really important.

 

[Longhorn6120]

You may well be right on the technicalities, but my point was to illustrate that an increase of 3dB is all that is needed to require halving the exposure time. This piece by NIOSH in the US explains it better than me.

 

[Munkul]

How do VUE cinemas get away with deafening people - you would think they would be more careful these days. Several times I had to walk out from a film. Complaints achieved nothing!

They're never loud enough for my liking... all that fancy speaker setup and it's always turned down so far that the ol' dolby immersive experience feels less like a drowning and more like a shallow bath

Anyways.... back to original question... if you think it's too loud, it probably is. I despise the sound of a compressor, especially the small ones. It's just that flippin' irritating. Deffo a sound enclosure... just make sure airflow inwards can cool the thing at the same time.

 

[Matchless]

I put some carpet tiles under my piston compressor, helped quite a bit as it stopped the floor vibrating and resonating the sound, they went right under the feet and covered the area, I think noise can upset the people next door very easily and that can open a can of worms with the local council.........................

 

[Popcorn]