Nextdoor has been abuzz. (Get it?)
Update – community meeting 30 October. Go to the bottom.
Ann Mallek sent this this morning:
Valerie Long had seen these postings about the noise as well, and had shared them with Sarah Yancey May (one of the three sibling owners) and the other family members who run the Mill.  She had also spoken to someone who had called her about it. At that point, and again today, Sarah confirmed that there is nothing different that they are doing there that would be generating a noise like has been described.
The mill is shut down at night other than the dry kilns drying the wood and the boilers, and they have been in operation for decades. They do run on a motor, but it does not generate anywhere near the level of noise that has been described in the neighborhood group postings.
Since there are some who have heard the noise near the Mill and are concerned that it may be from the Mill, the owners have asked an acoustic consultant to look into it for them. They have engaged Bill Yoder with a firm called Accentech to assist them. He is a scientist and acoustical consultant. He would like to speak with some of the residents who have been hearing the noise, so Valerie will connect him with Allen Billyk from the Old Trail Community Association who can then connect him to Marie Westbrook and Alice Faintich. He will also be conducting an on-site investigation.
A bit more from Ann
Below, Please see links to videos and also dates of community meeting to learn more.
Here are some videos that might help better explain and describe the noises.
This first one is a guy changing the spacer which keeps the lines spaced and prevents them from hitting each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE__F9dTU8k Spacers can be different depending on how many lines there are per phase. If you go to google images and search for “transmission line spacers” you will see that there are spacers for two-, three-, and four-line phases.
This second one is a guy riding in a buggy, so you can hear the humming that they are referencing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeMFnyMXDNw
Good morning,
Phase 2 of the project is about half complete, and we are in the process of removing old conductor wire, which means they will soon be pulling new conductor wire.
Phase 3 of the project (the last segment) is in the pre-construction phase and will move into active construction soon. Our goal is to complete construction by April 2019. Rehab activities may still happen after the end date, however.
There will be a construction informational meeting held on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. at the Crozet Elementary, 1407 Crozet Avenue, in the cafeteria. All of our customers are welcome to attend and ask any questions about the construction process.
We will be mailing postcards sometime this week, so they should be received sometime next week.
While I’m convinced (from driving around the Crozet area at midnight listening to the hum) that the hum is indeed coming from Yancey Mill, I also believe the hum is basically just “white noise.” It probably has been there for years, but we in Old Trail never noticed it until all the trees were cut down recently to make way for new construction. Trees absorb noise such as this (it’s like adding sound absorbing material in a noisy restaurant). With the trees gone, we now hear the noise for the first time. Frankly, we just ignore it. It’s not all that loud. With our windows closed we hardly hear it at all. And when we do hear it, it’s less noisy than our ceiling fan.
Makes sense. Keep expanding the track housing, destroying the natural environment in the process then blame the problem on someone else.
Urban areas tend not to be quiet areas.
Wonder if it bothers the beer joint people as well…
550KV power lines tend to hum at times as well. There are some close by.