Earmuffs over headphones: Wellington residents try to escape late-night noise

A resident in on the steeply walled valley street of Wellington's Holloway Road says they can only escape the noise of Wellington Water's ongoing night works near their home by wearing earmuffs over their headphones as they watch TV.

By Bill Hickman of RNZ

Some locals are furious about the month's worth of work going ahead to refresh the nearly 100-year-old wastewater pipes in the area.

But another person living on the street said the water supplier had agreed to fund alternative accommodation after a rough first week of the works going ahead.

The work is scheduled to take place over up to 22 nights and residents have been told the noisiest tasks will be finished ahead of 11pm each night.

But Malcolm Frazer said on the first night of the work he was disturbed by contractors shifting large steel plates onto the road and using a kanga hammer to tamp down asphalt to secure the plates shortly after 2am.

"Monday night I got zero sleep. Not a minute. I couldn't go to work on Tuesday. That's quite an impact on my business. That's a whole day's earnings.

"At one point it felt like my whole house was vibrating. There was so much noise. It was just insane," Frazer said.

Further up the road Frances Forsyth couldn't leave her home as she was recovering from an ankle surgery.

She said she'd found a novel solution to cope with the noise.

"They did the second lot of asphalt cutting right outside my place. Having experienced the first one, I was prepared.

"So I put in my little earbud things so I could hear the TV on my phone and then I put my earmuffs on top and I could barely hear the sawing of asphalt on the road below my house. It was a completely different experience from the one earlier in the week," Forsyth said.

She said without her earmuffs the cutting was a screeching noise underpinned by a constant hum of contractor's machinery and generators.

"You'd probably be quite happy to listen to it for about five to 10 minutes - like if you had carpenters next door with their skill saws or something - but if you have to listen to it for longer than 10 minutes it gets to rapidly be quite irritating," Forsyth said.

Notice of the works went out to residents less than two weeks ahead of the project's starting date.

Frazer said he had been appealing to Wellington Water to provide him with alternative accommodation since that point.

He said he'd endured previous works in nearby Raroa Road and at that time - after approaching the contracting firm - they had paid to put him up elsewhere.

He said his wood working job involved dangerous tools and he'd seen first hand the consequences of people working with routers, table saws and planers while fatigued.

"All of these machines have basically got sharp cutting tools.

"A colleague I used to work with was operating a CNC router. His hand got entangled with the cutter. It pulled his hand into the machine [and] the cutter went straight through his hand. I ended up being one of the people who was cleaning up his flesh and his bone off the machine while he was in hospital.

"Definitely fatigue played an impact in that," Frazer said.

On Tuesday, Wellington Water granted his request to be put up at an alternative location for seven nights - when the noise was expected to be closest to his home - granting him an allowance of $250 per night.

Frazer said the accommodation was helpful but said - up until that point - communicating with the organisation had been frustrating and stressful.

"I'd been asking for that for at least a week and I had no [specific] response and the replies had really wound me up to be honest.

"Essentially, I did not get a clear answer. I was asking for a yes or no answer. They just kept deflecting without actually answering my questions. Things like 'Just come to the meeting and hopefully we will alleviate your concerns'. That was an answer to the question 'Will you provide me with accommodation, yes or no?' that was written. Super frustrating in a stressful situation," Frazer said.

He said Wellington Water would only reimburse his accommodation if he could provide a doctors certificate in support of the impact the works were having on his sleep.

"They're treating me like a child and they're saying that they want a doctors certificate saying I'm having trouble sleeping and it's going to cause an impact on my life. Which I find really demeaning and rude.

"At least I can get some sleep and I can go to work. At the end of the day that's all I asked for and I lost a days work before they would actually acknowledge the damage they were doing," Frazer said.

Councillor for Pukehīnau/Lambton Ward, Geordie Rogers, said he was pleased Wellington Water had made "some progress" to support locals affected by the project.

"This is one of the first projects of night works across Aro Valley and so having had those teething issues - and now being able to work through them - it does mean that for projects going on in the future hopefully we'll have a better process for communicating with residents and trying to find assistance for them if needed," Rogers said.

He said the council was monitoring the work as it progressed and the noise control team was working with Wellington Water to make sure they were meeting their obligations under the noise conditions of their permit for access to work on the street.

Rogers said he'd forwarded "a couple" of complaints to Wellington Water since work had began, but he was confident the water supplier had been quick to follow those up and reinforce to their contractors the need to keep the site as quiet as possible after 11pm.

A Wellington Water spokesperson said they aimed to find a reasonable solution when working with residents who advised them of health needs or concerns relating to their works, and alternative accommodation was one of the options they would consider.

"We may ask residents to provide a medical certificate stating that the works are impacting their health. This is on a case-by-case basis, and we believe this is a reasonable and appropriate approach to take.

"We appreciate that the cost can be prohibitive, so when this request is made, we offer to cover the cost of the doctor's visit to gain the certificate," the spokesperson said.

They said they did not take the patience and understanding of the community for granted and appreciated how frustrating the impact of the works could be.

Wellington Water thanked the community for their kindness as well as the food, which had been offered to the contractors.

"While we are committed to restricting the noisiest works to before 11pm, it's important to understand that this is a live construction site and the crew may need to move equipment from time to time.

"Any noise caused by this is unavoidable, however we want to assure the community that we are surrounding the area with noise blanket fencing to dampen the noise.

"The crews on the ground take their responsibility to get the work done while keeping the noise on site to a minimum seriously, and we apologise for any disturbance caused," it said.

Wellington City Council said it would continue to monitor noise on Holloway Road as works progressed.