Important to note that this is *not* tinnitus. It has been objectively measured.
These hums are reported al round the world I think and as far as I’ve seen no sources have been found yet. The are also hard to record and measure which makes tracking them down harder.
One train of thought is it’s heavy industry and the low frequency sounds are travelling some distance.
There is always this, from the article.
> Feeling like he was getting little help in solving the mysterious noise, Chris spent £3,000 trying to get answers. He paid for a private investigation by an independent sound expert which revealed the likely source was a nearby 5G hub serving the city.
I’ve some experience with low frequency noise. I lived in my parents house for 15 years and my room got shaken during the night. Turns out it was HGV drivers driving along the A-Road about 100 yards away, but they were hitting a man hole cover so hard it was resonating the ground and the house foundations. Council dug up the road and moved the manhole cover and the problem was solved, it only took 2 years of wrangling with the council etc.
I also used to live close to wind turbines – they do make noise, but after a while you do get used to it.
What I think she is experiencing is pressure changes, essentially “sound” but at such a low frequency if you could hear it, it would be as loud as a washing machine in the house. This type of phenomenon is caused by wind traps (places where natural wind is funnelled by buildings/natural surroundings into a narrow gap and is therefore moving faster and impacting on other stuff, or machinery that is operating over night that is resonating with foundations and bedrock that is sympathetic to those frequencies.
i’d a similar issue in the place i used to live. i assumed i had some form of tinnitus for a while and it was sending me crazy. I’m a light sleeper so the noise kept me up and really messed with my sleep to the point i was only sleeping when exhaustion kicked in. wasn’t even near any main road or any other industry really
These situations are incredibly complex.
It’s often a combination of things and sources, not one single problem that can just be fixed.
Sometimes the cause could be located somewhere else but not be an issue, it’s just something specific about where it is that makes it a problem.
Other times it’s multiple sources and unique conditions that mean many people are affected over wide area, accounting for some people hearing it and others not.
It would be great if it could just be turned off. What these people really need is large scale changes or even help relocating.
Given the collection of long-closed collieries in Holmfield, and the lax approach to closing them at the time, a resonant hum is not a surprise.
There is a similar issue in various areas around Barnsley, but they are highly localised and intermittent.
On guy on the video said its “all day every day”, yet somehow there is no recording of it? 10-100hz is low but not that low, a ground loop hum is 50hz and you most people can easily hear that.
You’d think if you are making news packet you’d go to the site and make a recording of the sound.
Are you sure this constant drone isn’t just people telling you how good their air fryer is?
BBC: ‘The Council issued a statement’
Council: ‘Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm’
If it’s anything like my house, it’s a result of vibrating polyethylene gas pipes that were “slip-lined” inside old cast iron gas pipes in the street.
Noise is at its highest when the supply vs demand difference is at its highest (early AM when everyone’s heating is off).
In my case, the vibration occurs too close to a cast iron vent pipe that connects to the surface water sewers in the area and happens to run up the side of my house. Unfortunately would have to take SGN to court to get them to fix it, so I just live a noisy life instead to drown it out.
I am not a scientist but I did some quick research… so the first thing that came to my mind is “wind turbine noise” especially when they described the sound as a whirring of a washing machine! By searching on google maps there seems to be a wind farm at Calderdale which is around 2-4km North West of Holmfield. If we consider that the predominant wind direction in UK is North West, wouldn’t it make sense that the wind is helping in spreading the sound further towards Holmfield? They also said that the noise is worse at night, and wind farms typically generate the majority of their energy at night.
11 comments
Important to note that this is *not* tinnitus. It has been objectively measured.
These hums are reported al round the world I think and as far as I’ve seen no sources have been found yet. The are also hard to record and measure which makes tracking them down harder.
One train of thought is it’s heavy industry and the low frequency sounds are travelling some distance.
There is always this, from the article.
> Feeling like he was getting little help in solving the mysterious noise, Chris spent £3,000 trying to get answers. He paid for a private investigation by an independent sound expert which revealed the likely source was a nearby 5G hub serving the city.
I’ve some experience with low frequency noise. I lived in my parents house for 15 years and my room got shaken during the night. Turns out it was HGV drivers driving along the A-Road about 100 yards away, but they were hitting a man hole cover so hard it was resonating the ground and the house foundations. Council dug up the road and moved the manhole cover and the problem was solved, it only took 2 years of wrangling with the council etc.
I also used to live close to wind turbines – they do make noise, but after a while you do get used to it.
What I think she is experiencing is pressure changes, essentially “sound” but at such a low frequency if you could hear it, it would be as loud as a washing machine in the house. This type of phenomenon is caused by wind traps (places where natural wind is funnelled by buildings/natural surroundings into a narrow gap and is therefore moving faster and impacting on other stuff, or machinery that is operating over night that is resonating with foundations and bedrock that is sympathetic to those frequencies.
i’d a similar issue in the place i used to live. i assumed i had some form of tinnitus for a while and it was sending me crazy. I’m a light sleeper so the noise kept me up and really messed with my sleep to the point i was only sleeping when exhaustion kicked in. wasn’t even near any main road or any other industry really
These situations are incredibly complex.
It’s often a combination of things and sources, not one single problem that can just be fixed.
Sometimes the cause could be located somewhere else but not be an issue, it’s just something specific about where it is that makes it a problem.
Other times it’s multiple sources and unique conditions that mean many people are affected over wide area, accounting for some people hearing it and others not.
It would be great if it could just be turned off. What these people really need is large scale changes or even help relocating.
Given the collection of long-closed collieries in Holmfield, and the lax approach to closing them at the time, a resonant hum is not a surprise.
There is a similar issue in various areas around Barnsley, but they are highly localised and intermittent.
On guy on the video said its “all day every day”, yet somehow there is no recording of it? 10-100hz is low but not that low, a ground loop hum is 50hz and you most people can easily hear that.
You’d think if you are making news packet you’d go to the site and make a recording of the sound.
Are you sure this constant drone isn’t just people telling you how good their air fryer is?
BBC: ‘The Council issued a statement’
Council: ‘Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm’
If it’s anything like my house, it’s a result of vibrating polyethylene gas pipes that were “slip-lined” inside old cast iron gas pipes in the street.
Noise is at its highest when the supply vs demand difference is at its highest (early AM when everyone’s heating is off).
In my case, the vibration occurs too close to a cast iron vent pipe that connects to the surface water sewers in the area and happens to run up the side of my house. Unfortunately would have to take SGN to court to get them to fix it, so I just live a noisy life instead to drown it out.
I am not a scientist but I did some quick research… so the first thing that came to my mind is “wind turbine noise” especially when they described the sound as a whirring of a washing machine! By searching on google maps there seems to be a wind farm at Calderdale which is around 2-4km North West of Holmfield. If we consider that the predominant wind direction in UK is North West, wouldn’t it make sense that the wind is helping in spreading the sound further towards Holmfield? They also said that the noise is worse at night, and wind farms typically generate the majority of their energy at night.