DIY noise during weekends

[Rebecca611]

Hi, we work during the week and have started renovating our bathroom this weekend. These are our councils recommended times for DIY noise. Saturdays: 9am to 5pm Sundays: 10am to 2pm We always try to stick to these times with other work however this Sunday we needed to drill a hole in the bathroom wall at 4pm, it took 10 minutes. We had a complaint from our neighbour in the form of banging on our front door and hurling abusive language at us. We had to call the police round. I was interested to know if any of you stick to these recommended times? Or do you have diplomatic arrangements with your neighbours about these sorts of things? If you have had complaints how have you sorted them out with your neighbours? Any advice would be appreciated.

[Catso]

I've never heard of such a thing as a council's recommended DIY times. I just use common sense. Start time: when I knew they were out of bed. End time: 8pm.

Our neighbour did complain once, but in fairness, I hadn't realised the time (9pm-ish) so I stopped immediately.

[Catso]

PS I think such a reaction, at 4pm, is way over the top.

[drchasuble]

Well. we had a bonfire situation with a neighbour a couple of years ago. This neighbour used to burn all his rubbish, paper, plastic you name it he'd burn it. He'd do it every day. Because he was burning plastic there would be this evil smelling smoke that would get into my washing that I hung in the garden so I asked him nicely whether he'd be able to do it in the evenings when I'd taken my washing in. He started being abusive "it's a free country" all that jazz and it just turned into a horrible slanging match so I called the council who contacted him and said that they'd had a complaint and that it was illegal for him to have bonfires during the day and why wasn't he recycling anyway. Not so much as a puff of cigarette smoke has come over the fence since.
It is a council issue so if you make a complaint they should be able to at least pop a letter or a leaflet with the legal guidelines through your neighbour's door.

[WendyS]

I would have thought week-end working in daylight hours was generally accepatble and I think working at 4 p.m. is not unreasonable. However it might have helped if you'd warned your neighbour in advance about what you were planning to do and apologised for any noise. That way it might have taken the sting out of any complaint and would have shown you were aware that the work might have been disruptive. . All you can do now if you don't want permanent bad relations is perhaps send round a bottle of wine, apologise for the fact that he was disturbed and promise to try and get the work done as quietly and quickly as possible.

[jennyp]

It looks like the council are quoting shop trading hours at you!!!