Does anyone live next door to a neighbour with a basement hydraulic car lift?

[Violetpostit]

Our prospective new neighbours have planning to install one. How much noise/vibrations could this cause?

We will obviously look into this via the proper channels but would be interested to hear from anyone who does actually live next door to a neighbour with one of these installed.

it has the potential to cause a lot of noise problems. I would have a word with the institute of acoustics and ask if they have any info or papers written on this. if it needs planning permission then I would flag this issue now with the planning case officer. you can find out who this is by looking at the planning notice (usually on line) there are two types of noise that could affect you. direct, that is the actual noise of the machinery and indirect which is the structurally vibrations caused if the machine isn't properly isolated from the structure of the house. also the thing to bear in mind is that machines get noisier as they get older. I dealt with something similar in a group of maisonettes where someone had an internal through the floor lift. it was a mild irritation in the first year of use and we managed to baffle it from the structure and restricted the times of use. however by year 5 this thing made grinding squeaking noises.

the most important thing with noise nuisance is to try and design it out of the system not wait until the system is installed and then try to deal with it. you should ask the planning officer for a full noise and vibration assessment to be requested from the applicant as part of the planning process. you can then see what level they predict in your property and then you need to liaise with environmental health to make sure that the right conditions go on to control this.

if they don't need planning permission, then ask them for the noise data and consider consulting your own acoustic consultant. you want someone accredited by the Institute of acoustics and if you ring them they can give you lists of ones in your local area.

I hope you don't get any problems OP but I fear that you will so you need to be on top of this now.