THE NOISE CHAP
Competence for noise assessments
The chap wandering the highways of the UK and waving noise meters around with reckless abandon.
New York ● Paris ● Dubai ● Hong Kong ● Rio ● Singapore ● Beijing
These are all places where I don’t have an office and have never worked.
2023 marked 30 years of experience in doing workplace noise assessments.
(That’s a bit tragic to be honest…)
The Noise Chap is me, Adam, with the company name saying exactly what it does, I am a chap who does workplace noise assessments.
My background
Back when I had a proper job I had the frankly ridiculous job title of ‘Global Director Health, Safety and Environment’, based in Chester, UK, working for an American company with production facilities all around the world.
In 2005 I’d had enough of that life so quit to go self employed, forming a health and safety consultancy. That grew to around 11 on-site personnel undertaking noise assessments, hearing testing, fire risk assessments and general health and safety works. I myself focused on the noise assessments.
In 2016 that was sold and became part of one of the big nationals, so I could take time and focus back just on the stuff I an quite nerdy about, noise at work. No health and safety, nothing where the answer could be ‘wear a high vis’. Since then noise risk assessment and noise safety has been my speciality, particularly the undertaking of noise assessments / noise surveys.
Qualifications and competence for noise assessment
I hold:
Certificate of Competence in workplace noise assessment from the Institute of Acoustics.
The NEBOSH Diploma
Am a current member of the British Society of Audiology
That combination means I understand noise risks in the workplace, understand how it links into health and safety and health and safety management principles, and have a really good understanding of the physiological impacts on hearing of excess noise.
I used to be CMIOSH as well but with the dropping of all health and safety works except noise, that became rather irrelevant. Maintaining current CPD on things like asbestos, working at heights, confined spaces, and so on all became irrelevant to what I do so was not worth continuing.
For experience, I have personally conducted noise assessments numbering well into the thousands now, in everything from farms to joinery workshops, food factories to NHS hospitals, on ships at sea and in old-fashioned welding fabrication shops, for the British Army and for nightclubs, and everything between. There can barely be an industrial estate in the UK which I have not haunted at some point with noise meters.
By the way, if you ever want to feel properly out of place try doing a noise assessment in a nightclub - 200 pissed people all wanting to bellow down the end of a noise meter while you stand there like some lonely safety herbert.
My business ethos
My business ethos is to develop ongoing relationships with a small number of clients, and provide high quality and reliable noise assessment and noise training services to them.
As I am just me, with almost no overheads, I have the ability to provide a level of service that other providers can only dream of, but at a price which is extremely keen.
As a micro-company where you are dealing directly with the owner and noise assessor I have a vested interest in making sure every noise assessment is done correctly, not just churning through them, and I stand-by every result I provide. I have no faceless corporate office to hide behind giving complete accountability for the noise assessments I do.