has anyone made a complaint about a wind farm before? The noise is driving me mad [title edited by MNHQ at poster's request]

[Backstreetsbackalrightdadada]

I thought it was from our house, because it’s all around the house. It’s like someone twanging a low note on a guitar and leaving it like that. Like a distant ship horn but lower and fairly constant.

We live in a very remote area. It started maybe a year ago. Older people can’t hear it but young ones can. It can be heard in nearby hamlets.

It happens all times of day and night.

We don’t have any factories nearby or industrial estates but do wind farms, a village and a quarry.

Help!!

I found this -

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/49869/ETSU_Full_copy__Searchable_.pdf

Not sure if this is the same

www.heatonharris.com/sites/www.heatonharris.com/files/2019-01/inwg_am_studytor_30oct2014_final.pdf

www.legalfutures.co.uk/associate-news/noise-complaints-pauses-wind-farm-operationfor-now

www.windaction.org/posts/4379-windfarm-action-group-questions-noise-guidelines#.YVXDgCXTWEc

I have a relative who is absolutely against wind farms because of the noise they cause. It is far from unusual apparently. The organisation he has told me about is called Scotland Against Spin. Even if you're not in Scotland I'm sure they could point you in the right direction.

My friend has just moved to a new house near a wind farm and when I visit it's such a strange sound - for me it feels really intrusive even though it's a low level hum. It seems to affect me more than anyone else as it doesn't really bother my friend.
So what might bother/be noticed by you may not affect everyone else the same.
When discussing we also had a concern about the effect on the local ecosystem - animals and insects that use vibration must also be affected.
Sorry no answers on what you can do about it other than big sympathy...

Wind farm? Although, single wind turbine sounds much lower.

The one I linked to above is near a park that we’ve visited. It sounds like an airplane permanently flying overhead. It’s constant.

It doesn’t sound like that YouTube video, it’s more like handryers in the next door room (the old ones!), goes vrooooooooooom for a minute, you sometimes think the hum will get so loud it’ll shatter glass or something, other times it goes quickly or quietens, other times stops a few seconds and starts up again. It’s crazy, we really do live in a remote spot but are maybe 6-7 miles from a wind farm, which is at a distance but across from us - I have noticed the noise comes on windy days. It’s not the house or wires - you hear it just as loudly away from that. It’s not tinnitus as I stop hearing it with ear buds. I really have to wear ear buds at night sometimes!

Thank you for the links, to previous posters! And jillandhersprite that’s interesting - basically the younger lot can hear it here but not most over 60/70. Honestly one of my cousins left early because he found it so annoying. I don’t think we can just leave as not that sort of set up! It really is a horrible annoyance - isn’t there a place in Spain where they say the wind is so constant it drives people mad? Honestly this is so unnatural, and so loud and at antisocial hours… if it’s the wind farm I’ll be really really shocked as wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Funnily enough I don’t have particularly good or sensitive hearing at all! Others are more affected by it

Ok now I’m obsessed with it as it’s started up again so loudly, I have headphones in and can hear it. Imagine a really loud but low hum, my headphones can’t block it out. Ugh!!!

An you plant a hedge or tall fence to break the noise?

Contact environmental health and ask your gp to log it.

If you complain, what will they do?
They don't / can't relocate wind farms if people complain do/can they?
That reads really snarky no matter how I try to word it! 🤦. It's not meant to be. It's a genuine question for anyone who knows.

You sure you've not developed tinnitus? Take high strength b12 for a few weeks and see if it eases xx

Any complaint you make you'll have to declare if you want to sell up in the future!

I don’t know much about wind farms but my first thought was unlikely. Wind isn’t “constant” as you say this noise is. The windmills would be silent at least some of the time 🤷‍♀️

The hum is the generators they power if it is them rather than tinnitus which it may well be if you're the only one who can hear it x

We are near a very small sewage treatment works. That hums.

Took me an embarrassing number of years to work that one out. ESPECIALLY as I have worked in the water treatment industry.

No one thinks of that (not even me, apparently) because it is out of sight and out of mind.

Do you have neighbours, could it be one of these?

www.tanksforeverything.co.uk/klargester-biodisc-ba-6-person-domestic-sewage-treatment-plants?language=en&currency=GBP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1p6Dtsin8wIVA-vtCh3wCQ5BEAQYASABEgKN8fD_BwE

Some makes and models can be surprisingly loud.

I’m really hoping it’s not the wind farm as sure they’d tell us to forget it… have googled and seen the council have basically ignored complaints before from people who live closer. Our nearest neighbours are about half a mile away, they have it too. Not tinnitus as goes when I put decent ear plugs in :) I might buy a noise recorder just to see that I haven’t been going crazy the last year or so!

Even if we got someone in to investigate, I wonder how they’d find the source? Would love to know and stop it!!

Would the sound really travel 6 miles?

I would be moving.

Sounds excruciating. I sometimes get driven mad by my neighbours extractor fan. Once I notice it I can’t Unhear it and it stops me from getting to sleep. I fantasise about moving to the middle of nowhere. But clearly that hasn’t helped you!

I’d be looking at moving too. If it’s so loud you can hear it over appliances and you can’t tune it out, it must be having a horrible effect on your quality of life.

This kind of thing would drive me crazy. If misophonia is a thing, I have it. Have become really upset by everything from a neighbour’s water feature to a nearby laundrette - and all of those could be blocked out by other noise. I currently get stressed out by any article mentioning heat pumps as they are apparently noisy.

So I would absolutely move in your shoes. Sorry you’re dealing with this.