Neighbour with wood burning hot tub

[tootyfruitypickle]

My neighbour behind has a small garden and a wood burning hot tub just a few metres from the fence. He also has a BBQ even closer to the fence. He starts the hot tub up at about midday every weekend day. It emits smoke every time be reheats it. I have to make sure all my washing is in before 12. Then about 5pm he adds in the BBQ. This is every single sunny weekend day .

I’m at the point now where I think I have to complain. I was going to send a text during the week?

Also point out that as our gardens are so close we need to be considerate eg I wear headphones rather than use a speaker for my music.

They have people over every weekend evening but I realise I can’t do anything about that and they’re not terribly noisy - but it aggravates me just because I’m so wound up generally by them! I’m a bit worried though if I complain they might make these gatherings less tolerable and add in pumping music !

Is this reasonable or does this make me a difficult neighbour ?

I think he won’t change his behaviour significantly though. If he won’t, would I get anywhere with environmental health? It’s hard to provide evidence and it’s not continuous all afternoon, it’s off and on as he reheats the water.

I’m also worried about having family over during August as it’s not nice sitting out there when the chimney pumps out smoke.

Don’t start a neighbour war at the beginning of summer.

I’d ask him if he could put off starting the hot tub up till later on in the day due to you wanting to get your washing done.

People just don’t give a shit. At our old house they put a pizza oven right next to our fence (small gardens) and a fire bowl. Then we were blasted with smoke. It was horrible.

A lot of people just seethe about these things rather than addressing it though. A friendly request should be first port of call, you might be surprised with the response you get.

I would speak to the council in an exploratory way to find out how legal it is and regulations. By laws differ so might be different to here but strictly speaking we can't have fires before 6pm. No one enforces the bbq situation but not too much of an issue before about 5pm anyway

Not a bad idea to waft your compost bin under his nose. That way, when he comes to complain, you’ve got something to negotiate with.

Also yes, always find out where you stand legally and with council before you go for the ‘friendly chat’.

Why not try asking him first in a non-confrontational way?

Yes I’ll ask first I was just assessing if it was reasonable to ask - I will first just find out the deal from the council though (without making a formal complaint). I was going to ask him to reduce the frequency of use and also use it in the evenings rather than on a sunny weekend afternoon.

I don't think you can stop him, but might he be reasonable if you talk to him? Our neighbours had a huge green garden waste & (I suspect) household waste and plastic bonfire 2 weeks ago. It burned all night, blowing directly at our house, then a fire engine came the next morning as it wasn't out! They then muttered and moaned about our tiny BBQ that burned for about 2hrs yesterday & wasn't blowing their way, so I'm disinclined to think that neighbours can be reasonable...

Could you fix some high trellis to the fence and plant some fast growing climbers? It might muffle the sound and reduce the smoke a little once it's established.

When you approach him in a friendly manner, if he isn't cooperative, you could perhaps muse out loud that maybe you might put some sort of screen up against the fence. With any luck he'll think you're planning to plant a row of leylandii!