Noise complaints from wood working?

[Travis Conner]

So I looked at some of the shop pictures and it looks like many just have their shop on a large residential lot. Well I found a 2.1 acre property and it has a steel building on it already, along with many other nearby properties also having steel workshop buildings. I looked up the ordinance for my city and it says all activities allowed inside accessory building according to the zone, which is single family residential I believe. There is no HOA. I purposefully picked a suburban area where everyone has at least an acre or two of land, some people have several acres because I didn't want noise complaints from the neighbors. There is a neighbor maybe 75 feet behind me, but everyone else is pretty far away. I don't really know what all activities allowed means but anyways, I think as long as you aren't running a business then it should be fine.

Anyone get noise complaints or have any issues doing carpentry in their shop?

Please don't tell me to call the city, i'm just curious as to your personal experiences. I think my main concern with noise is the dust collector, since it sounds like a huge vacuum cleaner.

[mike stenson]

I have about the same property size, also no HOA, and I'm on what used to be ranch land. So probably pretty close to your situation. While I haven't been able to actually do a lot of woodworking, that's because I've been building the shop. Which pretty much means the same noise levels generally. I've not had any complaints from my neighbors, at all. Including while using the 32 cal PAFs.

[Travis Conner]

I doubt most of these people that have these metal buildings just sit inside and twittle their thumbs, but coming from the city I did notice immediately how quiet it was when I was their to look at the property.

[Drew Bernat]

I'm at the extreme other end right now. I have a two car garage in a townhouse row that shares a driveway with another townhouse row. I've been asked to not run the table saw during the kinda-sorta neighborhood baby nap time before, and was happy to take a break then.

[Travis Conner]

What time is neighborhood baby nap time? lol In a townhouse you're kind of out of luck.

[mike stenson]

I doubt most of these people that have these metal buildings just sit inside and twittle their thumbs, but coming from the city I did notice immediately how quiet it was when I was their to look at the property.

Probably true, at least 5 of my neighbors are contractors of some variety

[Matt Day]

What time is neighborhood baby nap time? lol In a townhouse you're kind of out of luck.

It doesn’t sound like that to me. He’s working with his neighbors so he can continue his hobby.

You’d be surprised to know that some do woodworking in city apartments, on a different scale but people make do with what they have.

I’m in my basement in the burbs, on 1/2 acre. No issues here.

[David Publicover]

I work in a single car garage in a residential suburb. No complaints. If I open the garage door or pull a tool into the driveway during the day, I just get curious neighbours.

[Curt Harms]

I have a townhouse basement shop. The township has reasonable noise ordinances and I've never had any complaints. I have a typical dust collector so not too noisy and am able to keep the real noise makers - jointer/planer and scms mostly to 'legal' hours. A reasonably quiet shop vac helps.

[roger wiegand]

No complaints here, the nearest house is maybe 150 feet and he likes to complain, but not about noise. My shop is a 1910 barn, for a variety of reasons I used spray foam insulation as part of weather proofing it. A side effect was a remarkable degree of soundproofing. You can barely hear the DC and table saw if you close the doors.

[Jeff Bartley]

The nice thing about a well insulated shop is that it keeps you comfortable and keeps the noise inside. I'm in a neighborhood and I shut the doors when I'm making a lot of noise.

Big dust collectors are really loud, putting those in a sound deadening closet helps.....even if the shop is in the middle of a field I'd put the DC in a closet.

[Travis Conner]

I don't think carpentry violates any ordinance in any residential area that I know of. I think when you look at the zoning laws for each area they're talking about it being done as a for profit kind of thing. The word they typically use is artisan. (skilled craft)

[Sam Force]

I live in a neighborhood where most lots are 1/3 an acre, my parents lived here for 35 years before I bought the place. They were wood workers too. I had a 3 car garage built and use the 2 car portion as my workshop. Had a neighbor call the cops on me for making too much noise on a Sunday afternoon around 2pm. She didn't like my music or the sounds of the dust collectors. But what bothered her the most was the reverberations coming off the lathe. The lathe itself weighs over 600 pounds and I have close to 340 pounds of ballast on it. It's not going to be moved. Some days I make some noise, some I shut the doors and try to be neighborly and some day I get the leaf blower out just to let her know I'm still here and I'm not going away. Too many real problems in this world for people to complain about a little noise. Out of dozens of neighbors only 1 whiner!!!

[Jim Becker]

I don't anticipate you'll have an issue...just be courteous if you need to do "loud things" and set things up so you reduce direct sound transfer from things like a DC going directly to the air, etc. Don't work late at night with noisy things...even in the countryside, most folks try to be nice about that kind of thing.

[Steve Mathews]

My next door neighbor in our suburban San Diego home would let us know when their kids planned to have a pool or outdoor party. We always appreciated the heads up regardless of the noise they made. Actually I enjoy the sound of youngins having a good time but you get the point. I think courtesy and common sense goes a long way in heading off complaints. I've tried to apply those same principles to my recent dust collector install.