Noise police: do they have a case in this situation?

[tmciver]

Greetings to all! I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Noise police in Charleston have fired a new shot across the bow.
But in this case, are they right? Please visit this website, play the video and decide.

http://bit.ly/noisepolice

Would like to know whatcha think. Does regular service help cut down on noise? What are solutions? :anyone:
Terry

[madhat]

Neither one of the Trane Chillers have the Architectural panels or the Trane noise arresting kits on the compressors, so yes I'd say someone has a legit gripe.

[WhoIsThat?]

Reducing fan speed 13% cuts fan noise in half. Small change, big benefit.

[hvac n-j-near]

The very last statement in the article says it all…quiet HVAC equipment equals more $$$$$ and most customers don’t even want to pay enough to size the equipment to meet the cooling load, much less up size a cooling-tower fan or add acoustic treatments to a chiller/condenser.

[BaldLoonie]

In the good old days, there would be a chiller in the basement and tower on the roof and all would be quiet. But slap an air cooled chiller with a bunch of scrolls, Carlyles or screws on the ground and it is simpler and cheaper. Gonna get worse!

One of our burbs built a town park and cooled the building with an air cooled chiller. Homeowners for blocks complained about it screaming into the night!

Nearby church here put in a deluxe Aqua Snap, bout have to get on top of it to know it is on. So they can be quiet if desired. Just prying that $$$$$ out of the customer...

[flange]

screws have a place, but when they are misapplied this is what happens. eb= er hear one in the middle of a school building that was just installed? school never knew what hit them. anyway, yes, that noise is offensive, especially in thr place next to the parked cars. them damn cars need their sleep during the day.

[Healey Nut]

I couldnt view the video but like Madhat says , noise barriers and the sound kits work well . The sound attenuation kits for the RTAC are great at reducing noise but make service a pain, and they are not cheap .

[ChillerWisperer]

Down here in South Florida we have a lot of schools with air cooled screws and ice storage, so they run most of the night. The schools are usually in the middle of subdivisions, so it's a big issue. The RTAC sound attenuator package is a lot more effective than the one used on the RTAA, but both deteriorate with age and are very dependant on being reinstalled properly by a tech after service is completed. And graham is right, they make service a huge hassle. Even worse is having to field install them when a customer tries to save a few bucks and it later bites them in the a$$. Glad I don't have to do any more of those!

What I find interesting is that engineers only pay attention to the sound pressure level (decibels), and not the frequency of the sound. The sound of a recip or scroll humming along at 85db isn't nearly as annoying as the fingernails on a chalkboard sound of a partially loaded RTAA at 85db.

[Super Tech JJ]

Remember, normally engineers are far beyond listening to a LOWLY HVAC guy!! I have not see many instances where an engineer will take information from someone with less education than them and believe that it has merit. I know that this is a generalization and I am opening a can of worms but I say "normally". There are some engineers that will believe the field expert!
JJ