Noise problem at Telus building - 826 Yates St

[Deekay3884]

For the past 13 days there has been a constant loud noise coming from the rooftop of the Telus building at 826 Yates St, Victoria, BC. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner. It's been going non-stop 24 hours a day. You can hear it from down at street level.

I've contacted Telus 3 times about it (various different people/departments) but they don't seem to have any way of contacting the building as apparently the building is temporarily closed(?). The phone number for the building has also been disconnected. The building is locked to the public. So it appears that no one is aware of this noisy equipment issue as I'm assuming they're all working from home during the building closure.

I've been advised by Telus customer service to contact the property manager for the building, but they don't know who that is and there's no contact info for a property manager on the door of the building.

[TELUS_Support]

Hi there, we have requested that someone look into this. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. 

[Deekay3884]

Thank you, that would be great. Is there any rough timeline on when this will be investigate / resolved? The noise is still ongoing and I haven't seen anyone come out onto the building rooftop to look at it yet.

[TELUS_Support]

We've heard back from the property manager. The noise is from the HVAC system and is below the required/legal level. Their team however is looking into ways to make the noise lower but will need a bit of time to implement a solution. We can't provide a definitive timeframe for it here today, but rest assured they're on it!

[Deekay3884]

Hi again, thanks for the followup. I would find it very hard to believe that the current noise is below the required level. To clarify a bit further, there is usually a small ongoing noise from their HVAC equipment that is not a problem (and I'm sure would be considered below the required level). However, the current noise is MUCH louder than the usual noise and can be clearly heard even through closed double-glazed windows half a block away.

I wonder if the property manager was just talking about the normal HVAC noise and not the current excessive noise? Have they actually been out to the building rooftop in the last few days to hear the current noise?

Also, this excessive noise occurs fairly often (once every couple months on average), but usually within a few hours I'll see a maintenance worker come out onto the rooftop to fix it and within an hour the sound is gone. This is the first time that no one has come to fix the noise and it's been going for 19 days straight, 24 hours a day now. This is a high density neighbourhood with over 1,000 residents living in high-rise buildings on this one block of Yates St and so it's affecting a lot of people. All I'm asking is that the property manager does whatever they normally do to quickly fix the sound. Is there a reason why their usual process isn't working this time?

[TELUS_Support]

Gotcha. We've forwarded this off to the property manager just now to get them to look into it asap. Thanks for letting us know!

[Deekay3884]

Perfect, thanks so much!

[TELUS_Support]

No worries. Thanks again for the heads up!

[TELUS_Support]

Hello again! We've just sent you a private message to discuss this further if you'd like. Check your inbox!

[Deekay3884]

Got it, thanks!

[Deekay3884 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE: The reason for the noise was that their main HVAC system was down for maintenance, so the building was running on the backup system which is quite noisy. I saw workers on the rooftop for many hours this week and on Wednesday they finally finished the maintenance and switched back to the main HVAC system.

After almost 6 weeks of constant high-pitched noise 24x7, the ordeal is finally over and things are nice and quiet again.

[TELUS_Support]

Thanks for the update. We very much appreciate your patience!

[Annex]

Hi there,

I'd like to follow-up on this thread-this issue is occurring again and has been for some weeks now. My fellow neighbors and i are experiencing distress due to this, we are in a high rise building nearby. This noise is ongoing 24/7 and completely unreasonable- even with windows closed, it is penetrating our private spaces. Can you help?

[Deekay3884]

Hi Annex,

Yes, the noise started again about 3-4 weeks ago and has been going 24/7. Agreed that it's very annoying and disrupting! I've been in contact with the building manager recently. Today he said the main HVAC system is offline again for maintenance and that they are waiting for some parts from Trane (the HVAC company whose equipment is on the rooftop) and he will let me know if/when they provide him with a timeline for resolution. I'll post here again with any more info I get.

[Annex]

I appreciate the reply and the information. Thank you.

And thanks for being pro-active last time, it was a great relief when it stopped for that brief period. Unfortunately, the city by-laws' wait time is also lagging, i have recordings from different times of day etc.

[Deekay3884]

Thanks for adding your voice here. It's good to know I'm not the only one going nuts from this noise 🙂

I also contacted Victoria city by-law the first time (before getting in touch with the building manager) but they seemed too overloaded to be able to handle it as you can see from my original reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/1jlhx9q/equipment_failure_noise_at_telus_building_826/