[HELP] Neighbor's Single Speed Pool Pump is driving me crazy...any options to reduce noise?
Hello all, I'm hoping you can help me with a situation. I apologize in advance for the long-winded post, but would greatly appreciate any insight, as this issue is driving me crazy. I live in SE GA, for awareness.
My neighbor finished building a relatively small in-ground pool about 6-8 months ago in their back yard. After their pool was finished being built, the pool pump they selected was placed on the side of their house facing us, as shown in the first picture diagram.
This pump sits about 70 feet from our open screened-in back porch. The noise tone and volume generated by this pool pump (sound clip here) is pretty harsh, and from what I gather, it is a single speed pump since it is either on or off. I am unsure of the brand or HP at this time. I have attached a sound clip of the pool pump sound as heard from our back porch as an example.
The pump has been on between about 8am-5pm every day during the swimming season, and 8am-12pm after Halloween to present in the off season. At times it has been left on all day and through the evening, my guess is when the pool is being treated.
This pump noise has become such a nuisance that it is driving my wife and I crazy, and we are unable to sit on our back porch or open any of our patio doors on the back side of the house when it is on. As you can see from the second picture, we have a lot of patio furniture on the back porch and I frequently enjoy sitting on the back porch, so this has been quite upsetting
Before I confront the homeowners, or escalate further, my research has indicated that there may be a few things I can suggest to the homeowners to reduce or eliminate the noise (in order of most to least expensive):
- install a variable speed pump, running at high speeds overnight if needed (My in-laws have a variable speed pump on their much bigger in-ground pool and I can stand right next to it and can even barely hear it)
- install a cover such as this one over the impeller (will there be any issues with the motor burning up?)
- run the pump at night only (any issues with this approach? Seems to be hit or miss on this one)
Are these viable options to help the issue, or are there any others that can be considered? Are there any reasons any of these options are not feasible? The reason I ask is when I confront the homeowners I don't want their responses to be "we can't do that". I have been trying to educate myself on the science of pool pumps since this has been going on, but appreciate the opinions of others on here.
Overhead View of the properties
UPDATE: Thanks for everyone responding and providing insight, I really appreciate it! I was not sure if that was normal or not, since I have no experience with pools. I will discuss some of the points below with them and see if we can resolve it