Since our business opened in 1999 in Singapore until our just recently expansion to Jakarta, Indonesia, Axis Capital Group, a company which sells and rents capital heavy equipment across Asia has experienced a lot of complaints due to the noises our heavy machineries make during operations. Even when we have started installing noise reduction mechanisms to our equipments, we still continue to receive tantamount of complaints through our customer relations department.

We are actually continuously searching for solutions to reduce noise made by our machineries. We have even asked the help of National Environment Agency (NEA) pollution control department to know their take on the issue.

In the midst of our research, we found a report conducted by NEA that more than 95% of noise complaint filed in their department are not valid. These are only made by unhappy residents who wanted some quiet time after a hard day’s work. The agency said up to 95 per cent of the feedback it had received about construction noise levels in the past five years was unsubstantiated.

Last year, it received more than 16,000 such complaints, despite efforts to reduce noise levels at construction sites through initiatives such as the Quieter Construction Fund, which can be tapped by companies to buy quieter work equipment.

The residents who complained usually wanted to know whether the noise they were hearing had exceeded the limit set by the NEA. Some of them filed complaints based on the noise levels registered by their mobile applications, which the agency said offer inaccurate measurements.

Why our Work Continues At Night

Some individuals ask us why we should continue with the project at night. We understand the need for peaceful and restful nights and we respect that but construction projects also have time frame and budget to follow that is why we sometimes need to continue the work load even at night. We oftentimes experience bad weather conditions which can greatly affect operations and waste a lot of time. To compensate, we have to double our work load, resulting to nightly operations.

As per reviews and under the NEA’s construction noise regulatory framework, the noise limit is set at 70 decibels — the amount generated by a vacuum cleaner when switched on — over a five-minute interval after 7pm for sites within 150m of noise-sensitive premises, such as hospitals and residences. Companies that do not adhere to the stipulated limits can be fined up to S$40,000.