The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005
Sound Dead Steel, winners of the John Connel Technology Award 2005 from the Noise Abatement Society and DEFRA have the full HSE regulations on this website as well as other useful links. Don’t wait for a health & safety inspection to close your factory or shut key machinery down.
The Noise Regulations 2005 require employers to prevent or reduce risks to health and safety from exposure to noise at work. Employees have duties under the Regulations too.
The Regulations require you as an employer to:
assess the risks to your employees from noise at work;
Take action to reduce the noise exposure that produces those risks;
Provide your employees with hearing protection if you cannot reduce the noise exposure enough by using other methods;
Make sure the legal limits on noise exposure are not exceeded;
Provide your employees with information,
Instruction and training;
Carry out health surveillance where there is a risk to health.
Do you have a noise problem at work?
This will depend on how loud the noise is and how long people are exposed to it. As a simple guide you will probably need to do something about the noise if any of the following apply:
Is the noise intrusive – like a busy street, a vacuum cleaner or a crowded restaurant – for most of the working day?
Do your employees have to raise their voices to carry out a normal conversation when about 2 m apart for at least part of the day?
Do your employees use noisy powered tools or machinery for more than half an hour each day?
Do you work in a noisy industry, eg construction, demolition or road repair; woodworking; plastics processing; engineering; textile manufacture; general fabrication; forging, pressing or stamping; paper or board making; canning or bottling; foundries?
Are there noises due to impacts (such as hammering, drop forging, pneumatic impact tools etc), explosive sources such as cartridge operated tools or detonators, or guns?
Noise can also be a safety hazard at work, interfering with communication and making warnings harder to hear.
How is noise measured?
Noise is measured in decibels (dB). An A-weighting’ sometimes written as ‘dB(A)’, is used to measure average noise levels, and a C-weighting’ or ‘dB(C)’, to measure peak, impact or explosive noises. You might just notice a 3 dB change in noise level, because of the way our ears work. Yet every 3 dB doubles the noise, so what might seem like small differences in the numbers can be quite significant.
What are the action levels and limit values?
The Noise Regulations require you to take specific action at certain action values. These relate to:
the levels of exposure to noise of your employees averaged over a working day or week; and the maximum noise (peak sound pressure) to which employees are exposed in a working day.
The values are:
Lower exposure action values: daily or weekly exposure of 80 dB; -peak sound pressure of 135 dB;
Upper exposure action values: – daily or weekly exposure of 85 dB; – peak sound pressure of 137 dB.
There are also levels of noise exposure which must not be exceeded:
exposure limit values: – daily or weekly exposure of 87 dB; – peak sound pressure of 140 dB.
These exposure limit values take account of any reduction in exposure provided by hearing protection.
How do I reduce noise?
There are many ways of reducing noise and noise exposure – often a combination of methods works best. First think about how to remove the loud noise altogether. If that is not possible, do all you can to control the noise at source, consider redesigning the workplace and reorganising working patterns. Take measures to protect individual workers if you need to.
Consider the following:
Use a different, quieter process or quieter equipment, eg:
– can you do the work in some other quieter way?
– can you replace whatever is causing the noise with something that is less noisy?
– introduce a low-noise purchasing policy for machinery and equipment. Introduce engineering controls:
– avoid metal-on-metal impacts, eg line chutes with abrasion-resistant rubber, and reduce drop heights;
– vibrating machine panels can be a source of noise – add material to reduce vibration (‘damping’);
– isolate vibrating machinery or components from their surroundings, eg with antivibration mounts or flexible couplings;
– fit silencers to air exhausts and blowing nozzles. Modify the paths by which the noise travels through the air to the people exposed, eg:
– erect enclosures around machines to reduce the amount of noise emitted into the workplace or environment;
– use barriers and screens to block the direct path of sound;
– position noise sources further away from workers.
Design and lay out the workplace for low noise emission, eg:
– use absorptive materials within the building to reduce reflected sound, eg open cell foam or mineral wool;
– keep noisy machinery and processes away from quieter areas;
– design the workflow to keep noisy machinery out of areas where people spend most of their time.
Limit the time spent in noisy areas – every halving of the time spent in a noisy area will reduce noise exposure by 3 dB.
Sound Dead Steel can supply made to measure enclosures, guards & exhausts, or supply the noise control material to fabricate your own.
View full H.S.E. document (Guidance for Employers on the Control of Noise at Work)
View H.S.E. top ten solutions (Top 10 Noise Control Techniques)