School Told to Remove Heat Pumps That Are So Loud Neighbours Are “Unable to Open Windows”
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
You might recall this story I ran in the summer:
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/23601201.row-reepham-school-criticised-eco-heat-pumps/
Now it appears the school has been told to remove them!
A secondary school has been told to remove its heat pumps after residents complained the system is so loud they are unable to open windows or go outside without being disturbed. The Telegraph has the story.
Residents who live near Reepham High School in Norfolk, have said the electrical devices that are used to heat classrooms are a “24-hour noise nuisance”.
The pumps work by absorbing heat from the air, are said to be more efficient than gas boilers and can be powered by renewable resources instead of fossil fuels.
However, residents have said they are creating such noise pollution that they are unable to open their windows or go into their gardens without disturbance.
Mark Bridges, who lives near the school, blamed the local Broadland District Council for allowing them to be installed without the ability to reduce noise pollution.
The pumps were installed last year but planning permission was only sought afterwards.
Residents have also claimed they were assured the pumps would be switched off on bank holidays and during the school holidays, but that they have been left running.
Jerome Mayhew, local Conservative MP, was asked to intervene to resolve the issue.
He said: “Whilst I welcome the school’s efforts to reduce the carbon impact of their heating system, this needs to be done in a way that is considerate to their neighbours and compliant with the planning system.”
The council says it is “working with all parties to get to a position that has enabled matters to move forwards” and has proposed “an alternative source of renewable energy to the school”.
Worth reading in full.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Promises are cheap.
Interestingly, the EDP’s main image glosses over the issue.
On the other hand, The Daily Sceptic’s image clearly shows the exacerbating factor regarding that (and many similar) air-source heat pump installations.
Some of the noise generated by an ASHP’s fan is projected directly towards the school’s neighbours. The DS image shows that the fan is sited very close to the school building’s wall, which in turn additively reflects a proportion of the fan’s noise towards the school’s neighbours, so compounding the problem.
Note these two comments from the Institution of Acoustics relating to ASHPs:
and
Click to access briefing_note_-_heat_pumps_-_professional_advice_note_-_publication_8.pdf
They could glue acoustic foam panels to the walls. Tomorrow.
GC – that’d only attenuate the ‘reflected’ noise, it’d have no effect on direct noise emissions.
It’d also reduce the clearance gap between wall and fan, and so possibly interfere with the airflow volume that’s crucial to the performance of an ASHP subject to the manufacturer’s clearances specifications.
I would also expect there to be a degree of various harmonic modulations occurring as each fan is capable of having different harmonics based on slight variations in speed and fan blade tolerances.
As an aside, the Daily Sceptic’s image shows none of those 5x ASHPs appear to be mounted on anti-vibration mounts.
Again, from the Institution of Acoustics:
One would have expected the school’s heating specifier to have insisted on their use. The additional cost would have been peanuts at the time of installation.
Joe, Geoffb and I have commented about these units having asynchronous motors. Multiple asynchronous units in close proximity risk running up all manner of “beat” harmonics that can seriously amplify problems.
Hi Ray! Hadn’t got as far as your comment when I wrote mine above. Great minds, eh?
Two points:
(i) “The pumps were installed last year but planning permission was only sought afterwards.” The system of County Councils giving themselves planning permission is intrinsically corrupt and should be abolished.
(ii) “Residents have also claimed they were assured the pumps would be switched off on bank holidays and during the school holidays, but that they have been left running.” How terribly green, eh?
The council has proposed “an alternative source of renewable energy to the school”
Would that be the same solution that EDF sent to me in an email today?
“Heat people, not the room: Rather than putting the thermostat up further, you could try a heated electric blanket to keep you snug. They typically cost between £25-50 to purchase but use as little as 3p an hour of electricity even on the highest setting”
The mind boggles.
Load noisy heat pumps? That makes me think that it was industrial versions installed.
For a school building that could well be. Domestic versions are for houses; presumably all other buildings will use industrial units of appropriate strength.
What this story points up very clearly is that the philosophy of these things is good old “we must do something; this is something; therefore we must do this”, instead of the more sensible acceptance that there are times when “the cure is worse than the disease”.
Most of the alleged “cures” for climate change are considerably worse than the disease! Doubtless we will learn this lesson at some, hopefully in the very near future!
The question there Mike is , why 5 separate units? Nobody would install 5 separate heating boilers so clearly something isn’t right.
I am confident I know why as I detail below.
You also get beat frequencies with numerous motors running, although they are supposed to synchronise with the mains they run at slightly different frequencies (1 or 2 Hz) due to load or friction, they are really annoying. You get the same effect on twin turbo prop air planes.
Very interesting GeoffB. The Toshiba units in the photograph use induction motors that are asynchronous but will have similar, but not exactly the same, slip. A probable cause of beat. I note 5 units in close proximity – have you just sussed out the likely cause of the problem? Are the Jesse James cowboy installers of heat pumps putting in combinations of units that were never intended to go together on the same circuits?
The lack of standards applied to anything labelled “Green” never fails to amaze me.
Isn’t there a requirement for a commissioning test process that could include measuring noise levels and vibration levels?
I’m no expert in the field of dynamics (or whatever is the relative scientific discipline in this area) but cowboys I understand.
And not just out and out cowboys. Government contracts at all levels are susceptible because the fundamental requirement is cost (though looking at HS2 it’s hard to believe sometimes). This is only made worse by the introduction (by government mandate) of a whole new technology, which is essentially what heat pumps are in terms of a mass market.
The expertise is not yet established. As Micky R asks, isn’t there a requirement for a commissiong test? Well, yes, but “grey area that, squire! We’ve followed the instructions in the manual. It’ll be OK.”
Why did they not installing a ground-source heat pump, would that not have been less noisy as well as more efficient during cold weather? They seem to have enough ground to do it, as well as it looks like good access for drilling.
Just like electric cars the right solution is to ban them completely. There is NO answer to this hellish situation. (I also add wind turbines and solar panels on farmland.
Geoffb upthread alerted me to issues of frequency “beat” from multiple units in close proximity.
A simple descriptive (sorry it’s wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)
Other article photographs show 5 units in very close proximity.
These particular units do not use synchronous motors so will all be very slightly out of sync with each other. I very much doubt this close combination of small units for the same premises on the same circuits was ever the manufacturers intention. In reality they make much larger units for such larger premises.
So why such unnecessary multiplication when a larger unit would do?
Probably a combination of “cheapness”, Sales con men and Jesse James cowboy installers. This seems to be part of a large scale project so every chancer will be in there troughing it.
https://www.reephamchallenge.org
“every chancer will be in there troughing it” – Just as happened with the scheme for cavity wall installation which went drastically wrong and was added to by the equally bad scheme to rectify it. Something like 4m legal cases still going on in relation to those disasters
Talking about stupid things….Shell Energy seem to be pushing ‘smart’ meters ahead of their sale to octopus. First there was a letter, then a phone call from somebody sounding like they live in Bombay or Calcutta, but possibly Bradford or Leicester these days. She waffled on and then said they could come and fit one over the next few weeks so when would suit me. ‘Never, was good for me’, I replied. When she asked why I went through the lost of all their faults as well as the lie that they save you money. Her weak response was that would give me £70. I hung up.
It’s hardly your energy supplier’s fault.
The blame rests with the idiots at Ofgem who are forcing-by-fining energy suppliers for not meeting ‘targets’ for the numbers of installations that the public is having foisted upon it, of gadgets they don’t want.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/energy-suppliers-pay-total-ps108-million-not-meeting-smart-meter-installation-targets-2022
From suspicions raised by Dave Ward from his knowledge of the locality, it seems folk should have scepticism about the Daily Sceptic.
For its story about noisy heat pumps at Reepham High School in Norfolk, it chose to use what may well be a totally unrepresentative image, of a heat pump installation at Moelfre Primary School on the Isle of Anglesey, without mentioning that salient fact.
In doing so, if Moelfre school’s installation is acceptable, then the Daily Sceptic has cast aspersions on the competences of the designers and installers of its installation.
https://jmrenewables.co.uk/case-study/installation-of-5-stiebel-eltron-air-source-heat-pumps-for-a-primary-school-in-moelfre-anglesey/
Naughty Sceptic.
Noise pollution
The key phrase is the school only applied for retrospective planning permission.
As others have said, planning guidance on preventing noise nuisance to neighbours from ASHP already exists. In this case the guidance wasn’t followed, so the equipment will have to be removed.
The school at rear of my house was going to do exactly the same thing but they applied for planning permission, so after a bit of objecting and falling out, the units were re-sited and a very expensive acoustic fence erected. I don’t hear the units in their revised location.
Interestingly when I asked the school why the units couldn’t be sited nearer the classrooms and away from me, I was told that the units were far too noisy to be sited near the opening windows of the classrooms. Inexplicably the school head couldn’t see the irony in their statement.
Further to point (i) by dearieme above, it transpires there is some collusion. The following quotes are from a local Facebook account set up in response to a proposed housing development yards away from the school:
“Recently, Reepham Town Council has written to Stuart Beadle (the District Councillor for Reepham, who is also on the Planning Committee)”
and
“Cllr Beadle is a School Governor and is also on the Planning Committee, can this be seen as a truly unbiased position to vote for the future of Reepham?”
Source: https://www.facebook.com/RealisticReepham/?ref=bookmarks
If any readers feel like looking on Google Earth and Street View, they will see a newish wooden fence surrounding a pitched roof building close to the NE corner of the site. If you zoom in on this (looking through the entrance on the main road) you can make out a large grey condensing unit behind it. This appears to be a vertical design, with a circular fan housing on the top. What you can’t tell is whether there are more units behind it.
As it’s a school, perhaps they could get the students to calculate what change in CO2 that the AS pumps are achieving and what difference that could make yo pur climate. (Note to teachers: please teach your students that CO2 is not Carbon!)
Nowhere does it say they’ve been told to remove them, unless I missed it. What the article does say is that some people would like them removed, and that the council is working on …weasel weasel weasel… etc etc. The end result of the council’s (probably bogus) review might well be that the pumps will stay. In fact, that’s what I’d bet on. They’ll just wait until the news cycle moves on a bit.