Most new air conditioners are fairly quiet--which particular model are you going with? I would let them know just for good measure.

Could contact your homeowner's association (HOA) and see what their policy is. If they don't have any issues with it, then you should be able to go ahead and do it. Carrier's new line of units are fairly quiet. The neighbor's can't tell you what you can and cannot put on your property and do to your house. They can contact the HOA, though...

Make sure the condenser meets any setback requirements from the property line for the zoning.
They are sometimes marked on plats, but not always.
A call to the AHJ should quickly find out what the required setbacks are.

There is no HOA for the area, and according to the contractor who would oversee the work, there will be no problem with setback so I'm just referring to any ethical concerns, not legal ones. Since I'm the new homeowner, I wouldn't want to ruin relations with the neighbors.

Is there some other product I can use instead, like a (geothermal) heat pump?

Yes, at a huge premium price. : )

I wouldn't worry about it too much... Carrier's upper-end equipment is pretty quiet. If they don't like it, then they'll have to get used to it or just deal with it.

No other place to sit this heat pump?

Wow, I never would have imagined that anyone would just assume that people live in areas with HOAs. What a crappy world we live in...

yoyoma, it's nice that you are considering your neighbors, but most newer units will be pretty quiet. At 15 foot, your neighbors speaking at a normal volume will easily overcome the whisper from the fan in your unit.

Go for it.

OK, that's good to know Carrier's upper-end equipment is quiet so I guess I'll just relax. This location is best because I wouldn't have to relocate the irrigation pumps, and is in the least used area from my perspective. Thanks.

Most units today properly installed are extremely quiet. There was a day that the compressors could be noisy but today it seems that when standing back aways the fan noise is more noticeable than the compressor.

If it didnÂt come with one, you can always add a compressor sound jacket/blanket to further muffle any compressor noise.

Many higher quality, higher efficient equipment manufacturers automatically install these on the better units to achieve the lowest audio dbÂs in the industry.

Most major manufacturers offer this as a part or kit, consisting of a vinyl covered insulation kit and they do work quite well.

Dont worry about neighbors, usually there is only one logical choice of location of AC equipment and today AC in a house is almost expected so, it has to go somewhere.

Think of it this way, you could of perhaps installed 5 "window shaker" ac units facing their direction. I believe they would prefer the central unit.

Hey fotostat,

I prefer an HOA over nothing or zoning ordinances.

At least things get done, common entrances are pretty, yards are maintained and I don't have to live next to a pink house with body work being done on junk cars in the driveway!

Re: yoyoma

First of all, are you THE Yo-Yo-Ma?

Second, if you would not be willing to accommodate your neighborÂs objections it would be only worse to ask and then just plough ahead anyways.

My neighbor recently (less than a year ago) installed a new Carrier HP on the side of his house furthest from ours  and we can still hear it when we sit out on our deck!

There is no doubt that a geothermal unit will be the quietest unit that you can install, as there is absolutely no noise outside. It will last at least twice as long as an air-source unit and likely be 40 ~ 45% more efficient. However, it would be the most expensive to install. Given where energy costs are going, looking back from a few years out, that price differential between systems may only look like a minor ÂinconvenienceÂ.

Did I mention that geothermal is the most eco-friendly of all active systems; has the highest rate of owner satisfaction & lowest life-cycle and operating costs?

SR

I'm not THE yoyoma, just like the name. Maybe your neighbor didn't have the sound blanket/jacket to muffle the noise? As for my neighbor's objections, I would hope they would compromise by asking that a quieter one be installed, which I could do, rather than it be moved elsewhere. But I wouldn't know unless I asked them, so it might not be the smartest to ask in the first place it seems.

My house has only a bit of flat land, so the loop would have to go straight down which I imagine would be a lot more expensive for a geothermal pump. It would be nice to have that I imagine though.

i have 2 hvac units at my house, one on the south east side and one on the north east side. the SE unit is a new trane XL14i and you hear the OTHER unit running when you stand next to it. from 15 ft away you barely hear it running at all.

"Hey fotostat,
I prefer an HOA over nothing or zoning ordinances.

At least things get done, common entrances are pretty, yards are maintained and I don't have to live next to a pink house with body work being done on junk cars in the driveway!"

_________________________________________________________

So why not move back in time to Nazi Germany?

Why would you live in a FREE country?

Zoning and local town ordinances tend to be way worse than HOA's.

I guess if one lives in the country, burns their garbage, parks broken lawnmowers where they die, could care less about property values, aesthetics and code enforcement.

We all chose to buy where we did and live by some or no rules.

Thats the beauty of our free country, we have that choice.

Fotostat, did you have a bad experience with a HOA or something? Of course if there is a HOA, it would be prudent to see what their policy is with adding A/C because there may be a set of standards for this if the homes originally had none. That was the purpose of my response, and in fact I meant to, but forgot, to mention "if there is a HOA." I live in a neighborhood with a HOA. I completely agree with zl700. Some things just take away from the value of real estate (i.e. broken lawnmowers, etc...).

Where do other people in the neighborhood have theirs installed? Would your location be similar to other houses in the area? (for example, where I live pretty much everyone has their compressors on one side of the house or the other, even though that's generally a narrow space between houses).

I would go ahead and do it, and then if they complain plant some bushes to help muffle the sound. Better to negotiate that than the location. If you ask first, they'll probably say "why not put them on the other side of the house?". And then you're stuck. So long as you legally are in the clear, I'd do it.

Our units installed this year are very quiet. I can hear them mainly from the wind noise not the mechanical noise, which is to say not much.

Not to hijack, and just out of Floridian curiosity, I thought one of the advantages of the "NorCal lifestyle" is that it's a climate which requires no A/C?

Has something "unwise" been done to your home (before you bought it) in terms of roofing, siding, coatings, tree shade, etc., which renders it no longer compatible with the local climate, and it now traps heat?

How many weeks a year do you feel you'll need A/C? Does the neighbor in question have A/C? Where is THEIRS located?

Back on topic: I wouldn't ask before install, but if they notice and mention it, I'd certainly boast about any and all noise abatement (and visual shielding) measures you're taking, or even considering. Having them over and serving them fine wines and expensive liquors can help in this regard. ;')

When Hurricane Wilma hit, I was SOOOooo glad I had longstanding great relations with my 5 nearest neighbors. Cheerful sharing and cooperation REALLY lowers everone's blood pressure on all fronts.

I installed my pool pumps outside the neighborÂs bedroom (on my property behind fence). Besides my 2 AC units is there, so is theirs, only farther away. What biz is it of theirs what you do to your house anyways?

I am nice enough to not run my pool pumps after 10 pm.

I agree you wish to ask them if you may install AC? Crazy!

I have a corner plot, and since I don't want it in the backyard, nor visible from the front, the only place left that's a bit isolated is on the side, near the neighbor's plot.

It depends what part of Nor Cal you're in whether you need AC or not. The further east you go, the more that AC is needed since the hills blocks off the ocean breezes from the west. I'm sort of in-between so it's mostly nice, with only a couple of weeks of hot weather. Even then it's dry, not humid weather, so I'm not drenching in sweat like I was on the east coast.

Would that be a corner plot in a cemetery, or a corner lot in a residential neighborhood?

6' under is cool, you won't need ac

LOL

LOL, oops

I am lucky in a sense, since both my neighbours have a/c units on 'my side' so when we get ours, it won't really matter except I do plan to build a deck on one side so will situate it on the other, it's also closer to the power and there's a service - plenum/duct/boxed in section there that runs right to the furnace room.

My neighbour on my master b/r side's a/c compressor seems to generate a low-pitched hum that makes the very siding (metal) vibrate, if you press your ear to the inside wall, it's like the compressor's attached to our house. It's not earsplitting but was rather disturbing when we first heard it.

We get on very well with the neighbour and discussed changing the setup a little, currently it rests on a wooden box that is acting like a sounding board, we'll lift the compressor (turned off, obviously, but how much can you move them safely?) and slip a concrete slab (oversized paver) under it, with some sand under that, and some rubber matting on top of the concrete. If that doesn't fix it, I'm not too worried although we could build some sort of 3 sided baffle around it I suppose.

I'd have done it ages ago, but it's a two person job and my wife always has something higher on the list and I'm not going to ask too much of my diminutive neighbour...

The other question is, how level should the slab be? I don't want water running back to their foundation but I assume a level operating surface is best for the compressor.

I understand the question of whether one really needs a/c in milder climes, but those climes where it doesn't get super-cold either are also ideal for heat pumps, a place like that would probably almost never need backup heat.

I think if you don't have your a/c cranked too low, they don't have to be energy pigs...

The neighbour with the compressor outside my bedroom has run it all of once this whole so-called 'summer' whereas the neighbour on the other side runs theirs almost every day, even when it's chilly outside (and it's not a heat pump)

Since we have no a/c we open windows. When we get our heat pump I fully intend to use it in a similar way, natural cooling and heating where possible (we just installed some blinds on the sunnier side of the house) and take full advantage in winter of the heating side of it. I'd love geothermal but we couldn't afford it, would probably overcapitalise us, and, in an existing place, is probably not too practical. Air source will be a good fit.

I have a neighbor with a noisy (75 decibels-not uncommon)) heat pump about fifteen feet from my property line at which point it makes about 61 decibels. It's very annoying and he couldn't care less. 55db daytime and 45db at night is the limit in my community. The db scale is logarithmic and 5db is a huge amount. Ballpark, noise decreases by about 6db each time the distance is doubled. Bottom line check the decibel level of the A/C unit with a sound meter to be sure. You're welcome to move next to me anytime given your emphasis on courtesy.

okay, flip side of the question. new house is being built next to me. can i ask the builder what type of unit he is putting in. big difference even in new ones. in my backyard, i can not hear mine which is on the side of the house. i can hear the one from across the street. i went with the most expensive trane unit 4 years ago. across the street are basically contractor grade.

I don't have a HOA here and I helped the neighbor out I welded her satellite dish on the bumper of the car right next to mine. We did discuss mounting an antenna on the car to get the new digital channels instead of payin that 5.00 a month and share the antenna but got in an argument on rotating the antenna or moving the car to swap from the city to the north to the city to the south. If she makes me move the car then I will have to realign the dishes every time. As for our heatpumps ours are on opposite sides of our homes, after the 'move the car or the antenna' issue I have here I would put the unit where you want it, I am sure it will hardly be noticeable to the neighbor even if it isn't a Carrier or Trane, if it has a scroll compressor you will have a pretty quiet unit.

We have a Goodman AC/ heatpump that was installed last December. We have a small patio in the front of our house that is less then 10 feet from the unit. I was sitting out there this morning under a shade tree and never notice the AC. I am sure it was on as it was in the 90's outside.

So I do think the newer units can be much quieter.

HOW DID THINGS TURN OUT WITH THE AC UNIT AND THE NEIGHBOR -11YEARS LATER? Was it worth it?

I can't take much more -so wish I had a neighbor like you. We live in a super crowded urban suburban area not more than feet between houses -have neighbor with ridiculously loud unit and now another one on my side (they can't hear as they have an addition and no windows on this side -their bedroom not near this). I had to ask a year ago for help but it seems to be forgotten. It is on 24x7. We also cannot enjoy our beautiful porch. I had to ask earlier for help with their outdoor speakers too which were BLARING eight hours a day. I look like the jerk here but people need to understand that noise is a nuisance. I did not purchase this home to have constant problems.

In the intervening eleven years since the original post, we have gone to AC power.

The changeover is discussed in the Movie The Current War