Is There Any Law Which Prohibits Building Work (Drilling) After 6Pm

[askyourgran]

The house next door has been sold to a young woman whose parents are funding the refurbishment of the house and a builder is doing most of the work himself. The work started mid-March and is still going on. He arrives most days Mon-Fri about 9am stops for lunch or goes to the pub for a couple of hours then he's back again. He doesn't start drilling or banging until 4pm and sometimes carries on until 6.30 (it was 7pm until I complained). He sits outside smoking quite a lot and then starts work in earnest late in the afternoon. Getting fed up OH asked him if he could manage to do the drilling/noisy work during the day, instead of late afternoon when we have our meal and watch tv., whereupon the mother arrived and said he could drill until 9pm if he wanted to. He has stopped now but he has 4 more holes to drill. Our dividing wall must be like swiss cheese after all the racket.

[hc4361]

http://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/412/pollution_control-noise/654/noise_from_building_works

[murraymints]

there will be local by laws...contact council..environmental health re noise pollution ..

[Tuvok]

I would keep a record of his time on site, then give it to your neighbour incase he's charging for the time he is not there.

And his length of fag breaks.

[askyourgran]

Thanks for the info, we are getting a bit cheesed off after nearly three months having the racket late afternoon when it is quiet during the mornings. Plus our house is up for sale and I'm having to go to ask if he'll be quiet while we have people viewing our house. Not nice having to complain, the mother is a bit of a misery but at least I was talking to her....until OH complained. Thanks for your help.

[IggyB]

Our local council dug up my road and pavements ... At night so as not to inconvenience drivers and pedestrians. They only started at 8pm and went on till about 5am, whole house was rattling with the drilling / jack hammering.

[askyourgran]

I Would have complained then Iggy. They should have put you up in a nice hotel until the work was done, depriving you of sleep is not on.

[EDDIE51]

The laws about commercial building work do not apply to a builder doing job in a private house. You can only ask them to be more careful about the timing.

[Old_Geezer]

I assumed that had to be the case Eddie. It occurred to me that for most, working on the house could only be done after work in the evening and the weekends. Folk need to be aware that it is not just their wants that take priority. Even though I have sympathy if noise is every evening. Compromise is necessarily when living in a community.

[buildersmate]

The way a local authority could deal with it would be using the Statutory Nuisance legislation. This is a broad area and not merely limited to noisy building work. Would generally be as a last resort after neighbours had unsuccessfully sought that the disruption was stopped both in terms of volume and timings.