Recently, here in the blogosphere, I have noticed three people complaining about noisy electric leaf blowers. In the summer, council contractors go up and down our road cutting grass verges as though it was an Olympic event. Then they are followed by others with petrol powered leaf blowers. They blow the cut grass around in a seemingly pointless manner while making a hell of a din.
I must confess that I own a leaf blower which I purchased twenty five years ago. However, I have not used it in over ten years, preferring to use a grass rake and a sweeping brush to create piles of leaves in the autumntime (North American: fall).
Until last week, we had a £100 stainless steel electric kettle by "Sage". We used it for around five years. It boiled water very quickly but very noisily too. It got so loud that I had to turn up the volume on our kitchen radio or if there was a conversation going on, voices had to be raised.
The dodgy electrical connection finally came to a halt and I was instructed to purchase another kettle toute suite. Our new Russel Hobbs kettle cost just £39 and though it is less powerful than the "Sage" kettle, it boils much more quietly. No need to turn up the radio any more. It's like willows whispering in the background.
Microwaves and bathroom fans can be pretty noisy too but regarding household appliances, the most annoying items in my opinion are vacuum cleaners and washing machines. They both make so much noise that they may stop you from thinking clearly.
One would think that through the passage of time, since these appliances were invented, someone would have been able to come up with silent vacuum cleaners and noiseless automatic washing machines. Instead, they continue whirr and blare away making you feel as though you are in the engine room of some great ocean liner.
Our "Bosch" washing machine has an extra annoying feature. When the washing cycle is over, an orange light flashes away as the machine bleats out a "Finished" signal every three minutes. The light and the alarm keep doing their thing until the operating dial is turned to "off". Surely the machine could do that itself! Would that have really been too much to ask?
There's a lot to be said for sweeping brushes and for taking baskets of laundry down to the river to wash. Much quieter.
The blowers are extremely noisy. I bought my first blower last year and it's a 5 dollar second hand. I thought that since I haven't had a leaf blower that in my old age it would be acceptable!
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't you just hold Jean in a horizontal position and tell her to blow? You could have saved yourself five dollars.
DeleteRe kettles - we have a couple of cheap (£5) Argos Cookworks kettles, and these are very quiet until just before boiling,whereas our more expensive Morphy Richards kettle is much noisier from the start. Both take a similar length of time to boil. Our previous Tesco cheap kettle was also quieter than the Morphy Richards, and survived for over 15 years before the cable frayed at the kettle end. So in our experience cheap can sometimes better.
ReplyDeleteWhen they sell kettles they should be required to display the "NIL" of the kettle (Noise Irritation Level).
DeleteI thought machines were supposed to be smarter than humans??? Not just louder.
ReplyDeleteRather than getting people to Mars or back to the moon, I would prefer silent kettles.
DeleteWashing machines I can handle. Range hoods not so much.
ReplyDeleteOh yes - those too! The noise can be outrageous at the top setting.
DeleteI had one kettle that would sing a musical scale, almost perfectly. When it hit the highest of it's notes you knew the water was boiled.
ReplyDeleteYou could have sung along..."Doh! A deer a female deer!..." etc..
DeleteI guess that is another A/I generated image. Noisy kettles are annoying. Our bugbear is the exhaust fan over our hotplates is too noisy. But we've tried others in showrooms and they are just as noisy. Our washing machine sits in a laundry cupboard with a door behind a door and it is very quiet there, as is our dishwasher unless it has little loaded into it. Our microwave does similar to your washing machine, except more often, but then it is not really something you move away from when using it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we might sue the manufacturers for causing mental injury?
DeleteMy microwave does five beeps to let me know it is finished and then stops.
DeleteDid you count me among those three fellow bloggers who complain about leafblowers? If not, I am #4 - they are my pet hate. Noisy, smelly, and completely uneccessary. The work is not done faster than with a broom and/or rake, it's just costlier, noisier and dirtier on the environment. But try to tell that those who love their leafblowers - I suspect it is often a question of "boys and their toys".
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of noise, one would certainly think that the world is noisy enough as it is. And yet, car manufacturers and drivers together are guilty of producing, selling, buying and driving cars that even come equipped with "extra noise" that is not actually generated by driving as such, but added in order to give the driver a more "sporty" driving experience... it is one of the most absurd things I can think of.
My washing machine makes that finishing noise, too, but it is two floor down from my flat, so I don't hear it. Also, some people need it as a reminder that it is time to take the washing out and put it out to dry. Maybe in your Bosch manual you can find instructions on how to turn the bleeping off.
Yes I did count you Meike... I will try to find our Bosch manual. We have had that washer for fifteen years or more. Very efficient apart from the bleeping.
DeleteAny chance of a Room 101 post YP? I would put Hoovers and hair dryers top of my list to go in there.
ReplyDeleteI would put in blog trolls and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
DeleteVan Gogh and leaf blowers? AI can certainly come up with the ridiculous. I am not sure how I feel about noise and household machinery. It is a bit like 'noiseless' cars could be dangerous. Most of the stuff for blowing leaves around and mowing lawns, not forgetting all the ancillary tools for trimming, should be banned.
ReplyDeleteElectric cars are usually really quiet. I am sure this will cause some fatalities.
DeleteAh well, at least noise is one thing that no longer bothers me. I bet northsider Dave agrees with your blogpost today.
ReplyDeleteI partly wrote it with him in mind.
DeleteI hate leaf blowers too and chainsaws. My kettle is old and makes a fair bit of noise, but I'm the only one here so I put up with it, I should replace it as it often doesn't switch itself off when the water has boiled so I go in and flip the switch. I am very surprised to hear a Bosch machine doesn't turn itself off at the end of the cycle, also that it is noisy. Do you have it in the kitchen as in many English houses? Most Australian homes have a separate laundry room. In the flats here, there used to be laundry rooms built separately and people shared the communal machines many years ago. Then they all got remodelled and space was made wherever possible to have a washing machine inside each flat. Some have a tiny room between kitchen and bathroom, some have a machine in a corner of the kitchen, some, like me, have a section of the bathroom, with hot and cold taps for the machine and a laundry tub.
ReplyDeleteThe Bosch machine is very reliable and it is indeed in our kitchen. Next birthday or Christmas, why not ask a member of your family for a new kettle?
DeleteI have a new kettle, in its box up on the shelf, ready for when this one finally dies.
DeleteWe had a clock with a loud tick, hubby loved the clock, I put up with is for years, I was so glad when we changed it.
ReplyDeleteMy son hated the ticking clock in his bedroom so much that we had to remove it.
DeleteI have a hard time with noises, and find them extremely draining. I imagine so machines are noisy because motors are noisy and a quite motor and insulation adds to the cost of the machine. Or appliance developers don't care, or don't use them enough to understand how irritating they are.
ReplyDeleteSilence is good for the soul but we rarely have it.
DeleteThere is a free online hearing test on the Boots website.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. Could you repeat that please?
DeleteWhen we had the kitchen redone, we installed a new dishwasher - it is the quietest one I have ever heard. The noisiest appliance in the kitchen is the clothes washer (yes it is in the kitchen in my home.)
ReplyDeleteOurs is in our kitchen too.
DeleteI'm not a fan of leaf blowers either.
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! Fan and leaf blower in the same sentence! Are you a fan of fans Ellen?
DeleteThere must be a way to eliminate the signal on that washing machine. That's ridiculous. Mine plays a few notes tune and that's that. You can set it so that it does not play.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I was one of the leaf blower complainers. Sometimes I can almost shut them out but that evening I truly was about to lose my mind. It just went on and on and on. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in the middle of a few hundred acres with no noise but what nature makes. Or us.
If we did live miles from others, we might start getting irritated by birdsong.
DeleteI've never understood why leaf blowers are such a thing. Just use a rake, people! Why waste all that fuel?
ReplyDeleteOur most annoying appliance is the microwave, I think. When it finishes it beeps and beeps and beeps and doesn't stop for about a minute or two, which is a lot of beeping when you can't get to it right away for whatever reason. The washing machine is only noisy on the spin cycle, which doesn't last too long. Our washing machine and dishwasher both play a little three-note song when we first turn them on, and sometimes I find myself walking around humming variations on it.
Any chance of posting your little ditties over at "Shadows and Light"?
DeleteI have a leaf blower and use it quite often this time of year. I mostly use it to blow the dead leaves out of our landscaping so they can be mulched in with a mower and it is a quick way to clean off my lawnmower when I'm done mowing lawn. I also use it to "clean" out my garage/shop of accumulated dust and grit that the cars and my woodworking always seem to generate. I do however wait for a decent hour before firing it up so not to annoy my neighbors which live quite a ways from me.
ReplyDeleteYour confession will be forwarded to The Blogger Commission for Right and Wrong.
DeleteMy new(ish) electric kettle is louder than my old one was. (But it's not leaking, which the old one did towards the end.) Maybe one should demand a sound test in the store before buying??
ReplyDeleteI guess it is a trade off between fast boiling and quietness.
DeleteI doubt that your wife would agree with the wisdom of taking your soiled linens down to the river to pound out on the rocks. But, to each his own.
ReplyDeleteThat is so sexist Mr Taylor! Of course I would be the one heading down to the river with a rucksack filled with dirty washing. As we laundered, the other men and I would gossip the morning away.
Delete