I don’t usually pay much attention to the next door neighbour’s son. He’s a bit of a Flash Harry; a Champagne Charlie, if you know what I mean? Shiny suits, company car, expense account… you know the sort. Anyway, I was out in the garden, humming and hoeing the other day when he turned up and said ‘hello’. Amazingly, we got chatting and talking about cars, of all things. He was day-dreaming about a ten year old Porsche he’d seen in a local dealer and when he told me the asking price, I said (words to the effect of) ‘goodness me, that’s expensive.’
Do you know what he said? He said, ‘in relation to what?’
I thought, ‘brilliant’. In relation to what? £15k for a ten year old motor sounds like a lot when you realise you can get brand new cars for a fraction of that; but it sounds like chicken feed when compared with the price of a new Porsche.
So, in honour of Champagne Charlie (real name, apparently, Aaron), ‘In relation to what?’ is going to be my answer next time somebody says to me, ‘Malc, that Home Boost is the dog’s danglies but it’s a wee bit noisy, ain’t it?’
‘Noisy?’, I’ll say through gritted teeth, ‘In relation to what?’
Before I go off on one, let me share some numbers with you. I’m going to start at ear-splittingly loud and fade down to a whisper.
Noise Sources and Their Effects
Noise Source |
Decibel |
comment |
Jet take-off (at 25 meters) |
150 |
Eardrum rupture |
Aircraft carrier deck |
140 |
|
Military jet aircraft take-off from aircraft carrier with afterburner at 50 ft. |
130 |
|
Thunderclap, chain saw. Oxygen torch. |
120 |
Painful. 32 times as loud as 70 db. |
Steel mill, car horn at 1 meter. Riveting machine, live rock music |
110 |
Average human pain threshold. 16 times as loud as 70 db. |
Jet take-off (at 305 meters); outboard motor, power lawn mower; motorcycle, farm tractor, pneumatic drill, Boeing 707 or DC-8 aircraft at one nautical before landing. |
100 |
8 times as loud as 70 db. Serious damage possible in 8 hr exposure |
A boiling kettle.
Boeing 737 or DC-9 aircraft at one nautical mile (6080 ft) before landing (97 dB); power mower (96 dB); motorcycle at 25 ft (90 dB). Newspaper press (97 dB). |
90 |
4 times as loud as 70 dB. Likely damage 8 hr exposure |
Garbage disposal, dishwasher, average factory, goods train (at 15 meters). Car wash at 20 ft, diesel truck 40 mph at 50 ft; diesel train at 45 mph at 100 ft Food blender, milling machine; waste disposal (80 dB). |
80 |
2 times as loud as 70 dB. Possible damage in 8 h exposure. |
Passenger car at 65 mph at 25 ft, Living room music; radio or TV, vacuum cleaner. |
70 |
Arbitrary base of comparison. Upper 70s are annoyingly loud to some people. |
Conversation in restaurant, office, background music, Air conditioning unit at 100 ft |
60 |
Half as loud as 70 dB. Fairly quiet |
Quiet suburb, conversation at home. Large electrical transformers at 100 ft |
50 |
One-fourth as loud as 70 dB. |
Library, bird calls (44 db); lowest limit of urban ambient sound.
Home Boost. Home Boost operates at only 46db |
40
46db |
One-eighth as loud as 70 dB.
Tested at the Acoustic Calibration Laboratory at Salford University at a distance of 1m from the unit. |
Quiet rural area |
30 |
One-sixteenth as loud as 70 dB. Very Quiet |
Whisper, rustling leaves |
20 |
|
Breathing |
10 |
Barely audible |
|
. |
So, there you have it. At is roaringest, hard-workingest peakiest maximum, Home Boost makes far less noise than a boiling kettle, never mind your average Heavy Metal concert. (And if you don’t believe me, read it here in the Daily Mail).
It’s funny, isn’t it, what we will and won’t accept in terms of noise? Who ever complained that a vacuum cleaner was too noisy? When can we expect the silent washing machine, or dishwasher, or coffee grinder?
When you think of the power in a Home Boost, when you weigh up how hard it works to boost water pressure and then keep the pressure within the demands of the water regs, it’s miraculously quiet. There are some people who snore louder than a working Home Boost. (At least, according to Mrs. Malc…)
So, get a grip lads, get hold of yourselves. You’ve had noisier, er, stomach complaints.