To complain about DIY noise

[Notsure1978]

Back story

Neighbour has been very active with DIY for about 10 months. Drilling and hammering most weekends. We understand he works and the weekends are the only time he can do it, but it’s been every... sodding... weekend for 10 months.

We had to cut our holiday short as our mum was dog sitting and just couldn’t stand the noise anymore.

Weekend just gone, he started drilling into the wall adjacent to my DD(11) bedroom at 0930. She was asleep, it scared the life out of her and I measured the noise in her room at over 80db on my Apple Watch.

I want to have a word with NDN and just ask him

‘Is there an end in sight’
And
‘If you need to drill in the morning can you knock first so I can get DD up and out of her room’

AIBU to ask for a bit of consideration? He generally only does DIY during the day at weekends, but after months and months it’s really starting to grate.

Just to add, apart from the non stop DIY he is the perfect neighbour. Friendly, we take in parcels for each other etc.

YANBU to ask if there's an end in sight but YABVU to ask ‘If you need to drill in the morning can you knock first so I can get DD up and out of her room’

I had to check back and read again because that made me think she was 11 months, not 11 years!

Haha, yeah 11 years so she sleeps forever. It’s mainly because of the noise level in her room. It’s loud enough to damage her hearing. Imagine someone using a hammer drill next to your head at 0930 on a Sunday morning when you are asleep 😂

It’s the only time she gets to sleep in as she is in breakfast club everyday at school. She can’t even do homework in her room at the weekend as the noise is constant

If you on friendly terms have a friendly chat .

Check with your local council as some of them have rules on what time of day power tools can be used from/to, for example one council states that "reasonable" DIY noise from power tools on a Sunday should only occur between 10am and 2pm so anything outside of this would be classed as a noise nuisance.

I don't think YABU to ask him those two questions.

@embracelife that’s what I am thinking. We are on friendly terms but I didn’t want to upset that by being unreasonable.
If it was only a couple of weekends it would be fine, but over 30 weekends in a row of drill drill drill bang bang bang from 0930 in the morning...
I will knock politely tomorrow 😬

www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/environment/environmental_health/noise_nuisance/noise_nuisance.aspx

I think the ongoing nature is key, if you look at the cheshire east council website it refers diy project longer than 2 weeks to the construction section. I would speak to your neighbour, say that after 10 months your patience is running thin and you need to know how long it will be.

In the mean time keep a noise diary.

Tbh, 9.30 isn't that early to start DIY on a Saturday. I think the permitted time is actually earlier than that.

Could you swap rooms with DD while the work is going on?

9:30am is a reasonable start time. And 10 months on weekends only when someone is working while doing up a house is really not bad. We had building work non-stop for a couple of years for 6 days a week.

When would you rather he does it?

Buy some power tools and fight fire with fire. Angle grinders can be quite noisy.

As annoying as it is , you can't say anything. 9.30 am is perfectly reasonable the law for noise is 8am until 11pm (some councils have bye laws that are slightly different, but they are still around those hours

Hang on, you had to leave a holiday because your mum couldn't deal with the noise? Could she not just go out for a bit or put the radio on if she couldnt bring herself to knock and ask them to quiet down

When would you rather he does it?

Perhaps after 10 months he could hire professionals to expedite his project on weekdays.

As annoying as it is , you can't say anything. 9.30 am is perfectly reasonable the law for noise is 8am until 11pm"

A quick survey would show that no council suggest 8am to 11pm for DIY noise on weekends.

Additionally, it is a myth that Any noise is allowed between 8am and 11pm, you can still be causing a statutory nuisance in that time.

"Hi nieghbour we were just wondering how your DIY is going?The drilling is loud in dd room so it would be great if you could let us know which days you will be working on that room? "

Neighbour will hopefully reply saying how long is left...if not ask directly if will be finished soon?

@greysparkles I wish she would have! I told her to go and knock if it got too much as he is a nice guy but she just got herself wound up to the point we had to come home. She has sever mobility problems so going out isn’t that easy, and she lives in a detached country house so isn’t used to neighbour noise

Thanks all, I needed a few level heads to give me a different perspective. It’s more the sudden noise in the morning that is a problem, my daughter is super active during the day (she does triathlon etc) so sometimes when she has the chance, id rather she can have a lay in without a drill being used next to her head.

I’ll have a chat, maybe just gauge how long it’s going to go on for. We are on great terms so I wouldn’t want to spoil that. I can’t swap rooms with DD as we are only in a 2 bed house and her room isn’t big enough. That would be the ideal solution.
She’s just going to have to suck it up and get up early 😂

Just for perspective, he knocked out a chimney breast by hand, brick by brick. It took him 3 months, apparently over 2000 bricks. I did offer to lend him a power tool to expedite things but he said it would be too dusty.