Sleepless in Woodbine: Resident irked by noisy generator at ring road construction site

UPDATE March 15, 2017, at 5 p.m.: After the story was first published, Randall Dyck says Enmax contacted him about the generator issue. The company said it wasn't aware their contractor had installed a generator that ran all night without a timer. Enmax told him they would stop the noise.

A noisy generator is keeping at least one resident in the southwest Calgary neighbourhood Woodbine up at night and he wants something done about it.

Randall Dyck said he has only been getting a couple hours of sleep at a time since Enmax started running the generator at its work site behind his house, where the province is doing prep work on the southwest portion of the ring road.

The solar-powered generator kicks in at night when the temperature hits –10 C to keep equipment warm.

"It literally sounds like a semi-truck right behind your house revving its engine. That's the intensity of the noise," Dyck said.

The city told CBC News that because the ring road is a provincial project, city noise bylaws don't apply to the work site.

'Goes on all night long'

The university lecturer says the nightly noise near his southwest Calgary house is ruining his quality of life and affecting his job.

"It kicks on just after 10 o'clock, runs for about 30, 40 minutes, turns off for two hours, and then it kicks on again for another 30, 40 minutes. And this goes on all night long," he said.

"My students have noticed I'm right out of it in the classroom. It's hard when you only get about two hours of continuous sleep to carry on with a normal day."

Enmax says the noise levels are within provincial guidelines.

A company spokesperson was sympathetic about the disruption and said now that the weather has warmed up, it shouldn't be a problem going forward.

• ​MORE CALGARY NEWS | Richard Pootmans replaces Diane Colley-Urquhart on Calgary Police Commission
• MORE CALGARY NEWS| Calgary bingo halls receive $189K property tax exemption