Question about Metal Polebarns, and power hammers???

[Fionnbharr (finn:-)]

My wife and I are looking for ways to get me into a larger shop, and she hit upon the idea of moving the animals out of our heavy corrugated galvinized pole barn, I am concerned about noise? It is a good sized barn ~30 x ~60and the roof is pretty high. The lowest point is probably ~15' with the peak about ~24'

My question is... I am not particularly worried about the noise level for me, though that is a bother and if I want to teach out of my shop I will have to do something..., but I wear hearing protection in the shop all the time just as a mater of course. BUT my immediate concern is about running the power hammer and the compressor, with bare metal walls, especially in the summer time. I am on the edge of a small creek valley and most of my neighbors are a 1/2mile away or better. But I don't want to have to insulate and seal the shop up so I can work late into the night as I am wont to do:-)

THose of you with power hammers and metal pole barns... How far? and how badly does the sound carry. Does your wife wander out in the middle of the night and tell you to stop so she can sleep, or that the neighbors have called...

ANd for those of you who have insulated thier barns?
What did you use?
How expensive was it?
And how well did it work, to prevent the barn from acting like a giant sounding board?

[HWooldridge]

I have a 35x50 three sided hay barn with metal poles set in concrete. Almost anything done inside that building will echo 500 yds down to the neighbors. However, my blacksmith shop is a metal building wrapped around large WOOD poles, because that was what I had at the time of construction (about the diameter of a phone pole). Does not ring at all but my wife can occasionally feel the power hammer running at the house, which is about 50-60 yds from the shop. It doesn't rattle the dishes but she sometimes can tell when it's going. Fortunately, my neighbors cannot tell when I am working and say even on a calm night that the sounds from vehicles and other sources drown out anything I do. The only time anyone knows I'm there is when the lights are on or they see an arc flash.

If I were you, I'd take an old galvanized trash can inside the barn and whale on it a bit - with doors shut and open. Let your wife move around outside from spot to spot to see if it's objectionable. Your barn may ring like a bell or be relatively quiet. The can will be noisier than anything you will likely do for real work.

[JWBIRONWORKS]

My shop is a 32'x48' pole barn with 10' walls, I have insulated the walls with 2" styrofoam. The power hammer is a smaller one with a 24# on one side and a 65# on the other. I keep a 10' sliding door half open when working for ventilation.
The house is only 20' from barn and I don't run the hammer at night or I wake the wife up. :shock: However the closest neighbor 600'+- has told me several times he can't hear me working.
I think Hollis has a good idea with the trash can.

JWB

[Fionnbharr (finn:-)]

The barn has heavy creosoted wooden beams as it's uprights and wooden trusses, so it should be a little more quiet than a totally steel structure:-) And at the moment it has a dirt floor so it doesn't seem loud in there at all, but we also have hay storage and stalls and animals in there too, so it will be a little better about absorbing the sound and not reflecting it all over the valley:-) I am just concerned about stripping all the stalls out and moving the hay and getting a decent concret floor poored if that is going to change the accoustics greatly?

[yesteryearforge]

neighbors and concrete floors can both be a pain in the --------back.
I rezoned my place to industrial under a conditional use permit so I wouldnt have to worry about the neighbors. I am like a lot of the older smiths as in I prefer a dirt floor.
The main reason that I rezoned the property was so that as my neighbors changed and the county officials came and went I wouldnt have to worry about what I could or could not do leagaly. I am in a very rual county that is sadly starting to experience a great deal of growth and as it grows the restrictions on what I would be allowed to do would most certainly increase without the protection of the proper zoning in place. This way I can open a store , teach or do anything and everything up to and including the uses allowed under the M1 industrial permit.

MIKE-T

[bruce wilcock]

Of all the tools the one likely to cause comment ,is a angle grinder an sheet steel ,and brass finishing , in a empty shed . On still frosty day my son says he can hear the heavy hammer working ,across water 3 miles away the other side of the bay, and thats in a stone building with slate roof ,we have no background noise to lose it in, often i get folk in the smithy ,say ,you were hard at it last night ,and i know they live a way of
On thing we can forget with a lifetime working in the smithy,is that the bulk of the population have hearing like Bats,

[Glenn]

Bruce, my son has heard my anvil being used outside during the summer at 4 blocks distance. Being used inside tends to kill the distance quite a bit.

During the winter or heavy air the sound travels even better. Across water moves sound well also.

[Ten Hammers]

Fionn, that shop will sweat if you close it up. good idea to get the foam insulation. don't know what to tell you on the noise, sorry..

[ThomasPowers]

Plant shaggy fir trees *now* to create a natural sound deadening barrier. The part about finding nodes (quiet places) to put the hammer sounds right on---but you need to do it with the hammer so you get the nodes for it's primary frequencies.

Can you extend the roof and stack hay around the outside---both insulation and sound deadening...

Thomas

[frogvalley]

Don't worry about the neighbors, they'll be fine at that distance.

What ya gonna do with the animals?