Help: Basement woodshop noise levels

[Ion Covaliov]

Hello gents,

I have been a casual reader of the forum and this is my first post. I am planning on purchasing a house with neighboring properties as close as 60 to 100 feet and plan on transforming my basement into a woodshop. Because of having a fulltime job, I intend on working there only during evenings and weekends no later than 10 PM. Does anyone have any experience with angry neighbors bothered by the sweet sound of woodworking? I read a little about sound-proof insulation but am not sure to what extent I should apply to my new home (which was most likely built in the 50s)

Best regards,
ICov.

[Victor Robinson]

60-100 feet sounds like a dream to me. We're attached to our neighbors, and my garage is bare framing! Our neighbors have yet to complain but I'm sure they can't be thrilled. They are older and retired and I can only hope they are hard of hearing.

Honestly at that distance I doubt you'll make enough noise from your basement to upset anyone.

[Steve Kohn]

My shop is a structure attached directly to my garage. The garage is part of the house structure.

The shop is normal frame construction, single garage door and man door. The walls and ceiling are insulated with normal batts of fiberglass insulation. I have a Grizzly 1029 dust colector mounted to the outside wall. My neighbor is also 60 feet away.

With the doors closed I can't hear any power tool sounds when I get more than 10 feet away from the house.

At 60 feet you are good. They will never hear you.

[Ion Covaliov]

Thank you for your replies.
I am actually planning on using a table saw and a router, most of the times. From my experience these two are much louder than a dust collector. I should also explain myself, although I wish I lived 60 ft away from my neighbors, most ot the houses in the neighborhood are about 20 ft from each other, with property sizes around 60x100 ft. I have never lived in such a tight neighborhood and am worried my neighbors would start cutting the power to my house off.

[Lee Ludden]

Set off a fire alarm in the basement then go outside and see how loud it is. Do this at night when there is low ambient noise. If a fire alarm isn't too noisy, then your tools should be fine.

[Eric DeSilva]

Set off a fire alarm in the basement then go outside and see how loud it is. Do this at night when there is low ambient noise. If a fire alarm isn't too noisy, then your tools should be fine.

I might go with the more direct approach of actually firing up (or having someone else fire up) the tools you plan to use and listening outside.

I'm pretty close to my neighbors and have a basement shop. No complaints yet, although I will confess that the little lunchbox planer, which seems to be the biggest screamer, generally seems to see action on the weekends.

[Ken Shoemaker]

Make'm something out of scraps as soon as possible. They can't bust you for being a good guy...:D

[Greg Peterson]

I agree with Ken.

[Dale Sandford]

Unless there are a lot of windows in the basement you shouldn't have a problem. My shop has lived in three different basements so far, and the only neighbors that ever knew it was there were told it was there.

-- D

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, I live in a townhouse, end unit so I have one neighbour who shares a wall.

My basement shop has a cyclone, saw, shaper, planer, jointer, bandsaw etc.

Absolutely zero complaints from my neighbour in 18 years.

Regards, Rod.

[John Morrison60]

I have a basement shop with the cyclone and same tools that Rod has.
I am 20 feet from one neighbor. No complaints. And my previous neighbor was a complainer. He called police on the noise from my Lennox Pulse furnace.
I don't believe you will have any problems.

Good luck.
John

[Myk Rian]

My shop is in the garage, and most times the door is open. No complaints.
Putting a Byrd head on the DW735 helped the most. I suppose making all the neighbors small Christmas reindeer helped a bit also.

[Zach England]

My neighbor on one side is 3 feet away (not exaggerating) and on the other side about 8 feet. Both say they only hear tools if their windows are open. The houses are brick, so that probably helps. I also keep chickens in my backyard and they tolerate those. If my really close neighbor complained I have some ammunition regarding noises I hear from her house that are (or should be) a little more private than woodworking, so I don't think it would be an issue. On the other side they have little yappy chihuahuas that make far more noise than any of my tools or animals.

I should add that last winter I was doing a lot of work out in my greenhouse and got noise complaints about that, so I try to do as much as possible in the basement. I also live in a neighborhood that is probably a bit different from typical suburbia. The houses are all very small and very close together and the area is pretty urban, so people understand that there will be noise and you have to be tolerant of it. People don't move to my neighborhood for quiet and solitude.

[Callan Campbell]

I have a basement shop with the cyclone and same tools that Rod has.
I am 20 feet from one neighbor. No complaints. And my previous neighbor was a complainer. He called police on the noise from my Lennox Pulse furnace.
I don't believe you will have any problems.

Good luck.
John
You're kidding, right? A FURNACE set this guy off?:eek::eek::rolleyes: Jeeesssss, some people......;)

[Callan Campbell]

We all want nice and understanding neighbors. The ones that aren't, we would like to live further than 60 feet away;) I live in Chicago, and although I don't share a common wall like a townhouse that others have posted about, I feel your concern about noise.
+1 on having a friend run some wood through your different tools while you stand outside the shop and take notes about the output noise level from different vantage points.
I think the Router and any other universal motored tools are your biggest worry due to the high frequency sound coming out of them. Low freq sound will probably get blocked by your basement/ or garage structure easily, like a table saw, jointer or drill press that has an inductive motor and not a screamer of a universal motor.
You can add noise deadening panels to your shop if needed, but you probably don't even need them. The houses around me are a few feet away, one's brick like ours, the other is a frame. Stay off the power tools once it gets late, switch to quiet hand tools or finishing in the evening if need be. Buy a wood chipper, leave it next to the house and offer any pesky neighbors a free borrowing of the movie FARGO. :D That should keep them away and quiet, REAL quiet.;)

[Rod Sheridan]

You're kidding, right? A FURNACE set this guy off?:eek::eek::rolleyes: Jeeesssss, some people......;)

My Lennox furnace had a very loud turbine type whine until the engineer for the mechanical company diagnosed it as an exhaust resonance and had the mechanic replace and modify the exhaust piping.

After that it was fine, but it sure was amazing when new........Rod.

[Robert Reece]

For the most part neighbors are reasonable people. Of course you can get somebody that just can't be pleased which is where the problems start.

The good type of neighbor will be good for life as long as you are kind in return.

The bad kind of neighbor usually has a long, hard life ahead of them anyway so I try not to get too involved. I just smile and wave and let the inevitable take place. In my town, we have ordinances concerning noise. I doubt any power tool would violate the noise ordinance, so any PITA neighbor would have little ground to stand on. So go make some sawdust!

However, Ken has it right, just make something for them and be a nice guy. If they need a piece of wood for some project, offer to rip a little bit up for them. etc (I'm not recommending you make them a chippendale secretary). I also occasionally have the neighbors over to sit on the back deck and have some cocktails and hot dogs. All that helps a lot.

I actually find that most people want to know what I'm making, rather than being annoyed by the noise.

[Ion Covaliov]

Thank you for sharing.

I will start my happy drilling as soon as possible. If I make it to local news I hope it's because of my fine pieces of wood art and not because of neighbors picketing my house :)

Regards,
ICov.