I'd be willing to bet not one of you has actually gone over there and listened to that thing when it gets going. I have. I walk down Gooding ave, quite frequently at night, now that i'm at the mercy of the public transportation system. When that thing is going fast, I can hear it on Gooding Ave quite loudly, I've walked by after 1 am at times, because of the bus schedule. These type of wind turbines have the generator's directly attached to the windmill. It's why they are so much louder than say a windmill that operates a water pump or the generator is on the ground, housed in a shielded building.
With that said. I took a look at the Google map pic of the difference in distance between Gooding ave and Hamlet ct. It's at least twice the distance. As loud as I've heard it on Gooding Ave walking by, they have all kinds of buildings and trees between them and the turbine. I can't imagine it being any louder than a whisper at that distance.
Typical talking is around 55-65 db's, a typical hair dryer is around 75-85 db's. People talking in a normal whisper is only around 20-25 db's. Under 48.5 db's is not that loud, even right next to the source. It doesn't have to be loud to be annoying though. A 20-30 db steady noise all night, in an otherwise dead quiet area, can be seriously annoying with your windows open. You should barely hear it, if at all, with the windows closed. However, in the dead of night, when your quietly trying to sleep, with the windows open, even a noise as low as 20-30 db's can be annoying, if it's steady all night.
Also, frequency matters as well. Low frequency noise doesn't travel as well as high frequencies, this turbine does whine out at a high frequency. Noise is also relative to distance and air conditions. On a dry, windy night, high frequencies are gonna travel louder and further than a wet or very humid, windy night.
You can't expect the police to get a proper reading, i'm sure there are fluctuations based on wind speed, air conditions, etc... I would suggest hiring an intermediate person to spend a night in their house when the wind is expected to be around 20 mph all night, along with their own professional grade db meter, and then see what they say. My opinion is, they would be wasting their time and money. Regardless of how quiet the neighbors said the neighborhood was, you can't live next to an industrial area without living with some level of inconvenience.
The only reason for the wind turbine is for the daily use of electricity at the business. I can't see why it shouldn't be turned off at night, between like 8 pm-6 am, if it's proven it's a nuisance. During the winter, when peoples windows are closed, then let it go all night. When I have walked by it on windy nights and it's running at full speed, it is loud enough on the other side of Gooding ave, to hear it clearly, however, I think there is something a bit dishonest about their claim, it's louder than their window based ac.
From the distance I heard it at, I can't imagine it being louder than the ac in my window, even a high end quiet model. For one thing, when your running your ac the windows are generally closed, right? Their house however, is more than twice that distance. I would like to hear if other neighbors feel the same way.
Mr. Coelho put that turbine up to save money and that's it, no other reason. Don't misunderstand me, there's nothing wrong with that. These things are noisy though and I suspect Mr Coelho didn't buy the premium model, that was probably a lot quieter, lol.
BTW, i'm no fan of Mr. Coelho. I have had some bad experiences with his repair facility and repairs not being done properly. I've also had a run in with one of his most experienced tow truck drivers, who couldn't tell the difference between a throttle body injection system and a carburator and pumped the crap out of my gas pedal, flooding the engine so bad I had to remove every plug and dry them off just to figure out why it wouldn't start. I tried to tell him he didn't need to pump it, that it was fuel injected. He stepped out of my vehicle, after pumping the pedal so bad it wouldn't start even if it had no problem, and pointed directly at the throttle body and looked at me seriously and said "that's a carburator".
I held my temper because I just wanted to get home. When we got there I let him have it. I told him I knew these particular vehicles inside and out, I've been fixing my own cars since I was 15, at the time that was 35 yrs before, and I had rebuilt several of these particular engines over the years and had done extensive work on that one. I took the Haynes manual out from under the passenger seat, with that in hand, I pointed to the MAF sensor and asked him how many carburated engines did he know of that had a MAF sensor, (Mass Air Flow), it tells the computer how much air is entering the engine, so it can regulate the gas flow to accommodate the speed your trying to attain by pressing the gas pedal, and then laughed my ass off till he left.
BTW, it had rained heavily that night, it was parked at the bus stop all day and I didn't get there till about 1 am after it stopped raining, however, a chaffed wire got wet and that's why it wouldn't start, easy fix. This was at Gooding Plaza. I walked home because it took less time to walk home at that time, than it would have to call AAA and wait for a truck at that time, when it still wouldn't start the next morning is when I called. While I was walking by Safeway, there was the turbine, whining away like usual.
All the way to the house, all I heard about was how long he'd been doing his job and how much he knew about cars. I avoid Safeway auto whenever possible. So when I say Mr. Alves is possibly full of it, i'd have to see a professional report on the noise level at his house before I agree with him, it's not because I like Safeway or Mr. Coelho.
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