Starting in May 2020, Powell Valley Healthcare began getting noise complaints from residents on Grand Street, south of the care center. 

The noise was coming from the rooftop chiller. 

Scott Shopa, director of facility management for Powell Valley Healthcare, said it sounds like a semi truck that’s revving up really loud. 

Due to the way sound travels, it wasn’t those closest to the facility hearing the worst of it, and some residents weren’t really hearing it at all. 

“Sound basically bounces, kind of like a basketball in the air,” Shopa explained to the PVHC Board of Directors at the regular March 22 meeting. 

“Right across the street, it’s relatively quiet. You take 20 steps to the south, all the sudden it’s dramatically louder,” Shopa said. 

Residents who happen to live right at the nadir of the sound wave could really hear it. And during the summer, Shopa said the chiller is running up to 20 hours per day, so it was something they needed to address. 

“This is PVHC trying to be a good neighbor,” said CEO Terry Odom. 

The hospital consulted with Plan1 Architects and Big Sky Acoustics to assess the best way to mitigate the sound. 

They determined the four-year-old chiller is working properly, so the issue is just the natural noise a large compressor makes when it runs. Shopa also walked the neighborhood to identify where the sound was the loudest. They also conducted phone interviews with the residents in the area. 

It was decided the best and most affordable way to address the problem would be to wrap the compressor with sound dampening, rubberized fabric. 

An acoustical engineer determined the fabric would reduce the noise decibels by 8 to 15, which would be about a 50% reduction to the human ear. 

The cost for the wrap is $8,507 for the material and about $2,500 for the labor. There is the possibility of using a roof-mounted wall to block the noise, but this is being considered a last resort, as it is very expensive. 

After the wrap is installed, Odom said PVHC will visit with the residents again to determine how well the solution worked.