Woman files petition to have A/C unit shut off

[chaard]

http://www.kspr.com/news/kspr-ozark-...,5609259.story

Ozark Neighbors Say a Noise is Making Them Physically Ill

OZARK, Mo.— People in one Ozark neighborhood say a noise is not only driving them crazy, it's making them physically ill.

They blame an air conditioning unit on top of the Christian County Justice Center. This may sound confusing, but one woman tells us there's nothing confusing about this sound.

She says it started when a new unit was installed in September and now a low hum haunts everything within a one mile radius of the Ozark square.

"Oh it's wonderfully quiet," in Elise Crain's neighborhood, save for the sounds of every day life.

"The dogs bark as you walk by, the birds chirp as you go along," says Crain.

Business owners and passerbys on the town square hear them too. But the same day, at the same time, in the same neighborhood Angela Buck hears nothing but an incessant pounding inside her skull.

"It pierces into your head, you cannot sleep at night."

She says months of research shows it's coming from the county building. It's taken over her life.

"Even only if a few notice it all are affected. We have done an in-depth study," explains Buck.

I have to be honest-- I didn't notice it. Buck says it's most similar to music with too much base being blasted from a car stereo. She says she can feel her heart vibrating in her chest.

"If you try to muffle it with toilet paper and ear plugs it only makes it worse."

Buck has gone door to door collecting nearly 200 signatures and countless stories of struggle from others who feel it too. Now she's begging for the city of Ozark's help.

"We have nuisance ordinances and in them is smoke, odor and noise is one of them, but when you're dealing with a loud party or a car that's one thing," Ozark City Administrator Steve Childers tells us. "When you're talking about low frequency noise you can't hear then that's something different," he continues. "So we would first have to establish a nuisance existed to enforce that and I think that's the challenging part."

Buck offers this as proof: on the same day, at the same time, in the same neighborhood it's as if two neighbors are on two different frequencies.

"It's wonderfully quiet," Crain reiterates.

"If you can't hear that buzz you must be deaf," Buck insists.

She sent her petition to the city of Ozark. She and her husband are on the agenda to speak before council at the regularly scheduled meeting Monday night. Her plea is that the city will enforce the noise ordinance and require the county to turn off that air conditioning unit.

Buck says she first took her complaints to the county but the commission would not address it. We tried to call the county too, but our calls weren't returned.

[tjrobb]

Heh, our chiller is right outside our auditorium. 24" of brick and 3' of clearance to the wall is all the sound attenuation we get, and still no complaints. The only issue we have is a 400Hz hum picked up by the sound system, easy to deal with. This woman must be nuts.

[Williamsma]

She needs to fabricate a tin foil hat. I heard it also protects against gamma rays from outer space. This I think is reliable info since the guy with the shopping cart has one and he says it also keeps the government from reading his thoughts.

[BaldLoonie]

Had that happen in the sleepy little town of Plainfield IN. The town put in a water park and a chiller for the clubhouse. Said compressor, screw I think, made a whine that bothered the neighbors. Not sure what was done about it.

[ga-hvac-tech]

Church I was in years back had an issue like that. OLD York (1950's) with 3 ph compressor. There was a house diagonally across the street, and sitting on the front screen porch one heard this low frequency hum.

Long and short... we put some sheet foam on the inside of the staggered (open to airflow) brick wall facing her porch... problem solved.

The problem DID exist... just took a little investigation and outside-the-box thinking to resolve it.

[meplumber]

Several years back, I had this hospital account that had neighbors complaining about noise from the rooftop equipment.

You could only hear it at night when all of the ambient noise died down.

I went over late one night and I could hear what they were talking about. It was a low frequency low volume roar that seemed to penetrate your whole body.

The hospital brought in an Acoustic Engineer. He set up a bunch of instruments and dialed in on the exact frequency. We went around turning off equipment until he found out which one it was. Turned out it was a large exhaust fan with deteriorating bearings.

[chaard]

I drove by the building today. Did not hear or feel anything unusual. Only saw an older unit from one side. I'm sure they can get an hvac co. or engineer to fix the problem without replacing the problem unit.

[jburchstead]

I used to be in to school maintenace. At one of our High Schools we had a Trane sidewinder (R113) that when it got some air in it would make noises that sounded like an elephant. I was exiting the boiler room one day when a student asked what was that noise and I replied that is where we keep the elephants. A few days later the teacher that had the classroom above the boiler room told me all the students were saying there were elephants in the basement and they "were doing it". Later that year we replaced that unit with a screw chiller. Not too long after that the teacher with classroom above the boiler room told me they would rather listen to elephants.

[Nuclrchiller]

I used to be in to school maintenace. At one of our High Schools we had a Trane sidewinder (R113) that when it got some air in it would make noises that sounded like an elephant. I was exiting the boiler room one day when a student asked what was that noise and I replied that is where we keep the elephants. A few days later the teacher that had the classroom above the boiler room told me all the students were saying there were elephants in the basement and they "were doing it". Later that year we replaced that unit with a screw chiller. Not too long after that the teacher with classroom above the boiler room told me they would rather listen to elephants.

Very Funny!

[hvacvegas]

Why not just tell the lady it's turned off?

"oh man, my headaches went away...."

'liar.'