I'm curious to hear why God did it on that one. On your hill, I'm trying really hard to visualize that. I'm finding it hard to do for some reason. Maybe too much alcohol.
I would imagine that I would have me delivered about 6 m3 of soil and have it placed on some circular stone foundation (no need for cement) leave an opening on the side where noise is no problem, build up to about 5 feet and roof it, in the center of the hill have a well drained floor made where you place your Generator. On the outside cover with grass patches and shrubs...
good thread! the house we're renting has a generatorbuilding similar to the one in knowdafish's post. ours is concrete block with plywood doors and a corrugated (zinc) roof. the generator is so loud i'm embarrassed to run it in a neighborhood where a lot of people don't have power, it's also several thousand decibels above my low tolerance for unnecessary noise which seems to be popular here in da fils... when the time comes, i'm thinking i'll build a generator house similar to the wood one in the foto but with 6'' hollow block walls filled with sand. the roof will be a slab of concrete or ferrocement with corrugated roofing to the weather. the door will be steel framed with 4'' block infill or ferrocement. all inside surfaces will be rough concrete to deaden/absorb the noise. i'm thinking of building a pair of concrete block chimneys for the vents. the exhaust chimney will be open at the room ceiling so the warm air heated by the generator will naturally go up drawing air down the fresh air vent chimney which will be open at the floor. the generator should be a purr in an enclosure of this type... now... how to muffle the mooing cows, bleating goats, crowing roosters, the all too many motors with amplified exhausts making their way up the rocky mountain road and, of course the neighborhood sound systems when we have power. norm : ))~
Just so everyone here knows there are alternative sources of electrical power that one can use instead of a generator, especially when most "brownouts" here last a day or less. One source is a deep cycle battery bank and one or two inverters. The batteries are kept charged by a battery charger that if left plugged in. While there is power the batteries are kept charged. When there is no power an automatic transfer switch trips and power is drawn from the battery bank and inverter(s). This system can be built for the price of a generator, fuel, and the enclosures talked about above and makes NO noise. Maintenance involves keeping the batteries topped off with distilled water. No fuel to buy. No oil to change, and no cranking of a generator is necessary. The system can be scaled up or down depending on how much electricity you need. An 800 watt system will run lights, a small refer, a computer, and a fan or two, but not an aircon. It is reliable, automatic, and is easily do-able. More info here: Electricity in Cambodia - Electricity: Philippines Brownouts, Generators, Solar & Wind Power - Living In Cebu Forums
Pat, Here's two choices. #1 - Buy your neighbor some throw away ear plugs. #2 - Ask your neighbor to buy his own generator, then when he runs it he won't notice yours. Or #3 - They do sell quiet running generators that only cost roughly twice what yours probably cost. Our neighbors didn't complain a bit during our last 5-7 day blackout in December 2012 when we charged all their cell phones, lap tops, rechargeable lights, etc..
Solid alternatives from everyone, thanks. The funny this, my Austrian neighbor seems to forget his gartner spends up to 3 days cutting the guys large lawn with a weed wackier and half the time is running it near our dividing wall about 3 meters from my boy's bedroom while he is trying to nap. I have never complained though. The Chinese piece of crap I bought is extremely loud so I have to agree with the guy. My friend the American contractor came over today and had a look and I discussed some of the solutions mentioned on this post. He will make a drawing and proposal. He wants to build a concrete bunker, I like the idea of Norm's putting sand in the CHB's. Should be an interesting project. Thanks again for your inputs. Charlie, I thought of your ideas but I'm worried his generator would be louder than mine and the mayor who lives around the corner will start bitching.
remember if you add a second muffler make sure you give some thought to the back pressure. the engine needs to exhaust, so too much of a muffler can restrict the flow of air out of the engine.....
Thanks Gerry. What my guy did was cut a hole in the back of the concrete box and another hole with a pipe going through the hole and extended into the box for the muffler on the generator to go into. It will be complete in a couple of days and will test it out.
Hi Pat--these websites may provide someinfo, should you choose this method Earthbag Basics Earthbag Construction HowStuffWorks "Challenges of Earthbag Construction" Earthbag Building Articles
Just to echo some of the posts Fibre glass insulation is the best of all the insulators, the generator house is another good idea as long as there is adequate ventilation, I have seen wooden air compressor houses burn down workshops in AU when the electric compressor overheated and caught fire to the box, a better muffler may help, also the exhaust can be amerced in a large drum of water, depending on the engine style the engine mechanics can be the problem not so much the exhaust noise. In AU my friend had a mobile ice cream truck with a single cylinder engine was very noisy and very thirsty on fuel, I constructed him a generator with an old Nissan 1200cc engine bolted to a frame with old engine mounts as feet, had a governor at 1500rpm max, run a 8kva unit, it was very good on fuel and extremely quiet with a normal car muffler and a 5 foot exhaust pipe
