Charlie: Camille in Greenway writes to us, “I have bought a house, and I have three air conditioner units on the roof above a second floor bedroom. The noise and vibrations,” she says, Tom, “is so loud …
Tom: I bet.
Charlie: … we tried springs and that didn’t work.”
Tom: No.
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Charlie: “I’m thinking about using a couple adjacent walls from the roof pitch to add some beams and a platform to get the units off the roof from sitting directly on the rafters. Do you think this will help?”
Tom: Any time you can separate the vibration … Noise is vibration. Noise is like a pebble in the water. You see the ripples go.
Charlie: Oh.
Tom: Ooh.
Charlie: We’re getting into the Zen of design now.
Tom: It is true. But, the fact of the matter is, if you can separate it, the better, but three air conditioning units on your ceiling joist, above your bedroom, it’s gonna sound like you hanging out at Bush Airport.
Charlie: I was gonna say, you’re out on the tarmac, yeah.
Tom: I had to move my mother’s air conditioner just because it was a brick wall and everything else just about 10 feet down, ’cause she couldn’t sleep when she was trying to sleep and that was about five years ago. Rick did it, actually, for me, at Absolute Comfort Air. But the fact of the matter is, yeah, you better talk to some people. Springs and rubber pads are not gonna help.
Charlie: No, no. But if you build a frame like that up there and separate it from it, it would reduce it some, don’t you think?
Tom: Maybe. I think it would be some, but for me to sit here on the radio and say “If you do it, you’ll never hear a thing,” I’m not gonna do it. Oh, no, no, no, no.
Charlie: I think it … reduction. It’s like people wanna soundproof a wall. No, you can deaden it but you’re not gonna soundproof it.
Tom: That’s right.
Charlie: And the same thing goes with this. I’m really wondering why that they don’t have some kind of dampener that you can put under there with offset bolts and a rubber gyrometer, something that would set it off.
Tom: Because it’s vibration. Vibration on the framing, it’s gonna make noise. And I know you try to dampen it with rubber and stuff but if you still have that vibration it’s gonna be different decibel …
Charlie: So her beef really, is with the architect.
Tom: Well, the beef is, you shouldn’t have … yeah. Well, I don’t know about … I’m not gonna beat up the architect.
Charlie: Whoever designed the air conditioning system and put it to …
Tom: Put the condensers on the ground, where everybody else’s are, then you won’t hear the vibration.