Noise Dosimeter:

Noise dosimeters by Quest Technologies help companies meet the European Union’s Directives and Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005.

“Around one third of the employees in Europe are exposed to potentially dangerous levels of noise for at least a quarter of their time at work. And it’s not just those in industries such as construction or manufacturing who are at risk. Noise can be a problem in many working environments from factories to farms, call centres to concert halls.”

This is part of the declaration that was made at the European Week for Safety and Health at Work in 2005. In fact, the tagline of the event summarized the urgency of the situation – “Noise at work – it can cost you more than your hearing.” All Member States, candidate and EFTA countries, the Luxembourg and United Kingdom EU Presidencies, the European Commission and Parliament, trade unions and employers’ federations backed the campaign.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) noise at workplace can lead to various ailments such as hearing loss and tinnitus, which is a distressing condition of permanent ringing in the ears leading to disturbances in sleeping. In fact, there are over one million employees in Great Britain, which includes Ireland and Scotland, who are exposed to levels of noise that put their hearing at risk. Around 170,000 people in the UK suffer from deafness, tinnitus or other ailments as a result of over-exposure to noise at work

Under these circumstances of heightened risk and increased awareness, Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 (the Noise Regulations) came into effect for all industry sectors in Great Britain on 6 April 2006. However, the music and entertainment sectors are kept out of the purview of the regulations until 6 April 2008. The regulation requires the employers to provide their employees with hearing protection when they cannot reduce the noise exposure levels through other methods. They also have to make hearing protection available on request at 80 dB and ensure that it is worn when the noise levels cross 85 dB.

However, the very first step toward noise regulation is assessing whether noise exposure at your workplace is above the safe limits. This requires measurement of the exposure levels. Various techniques and equipment such as sound level meters, real-time frequency analysers and noise dosimeters (also called noise dose meters or personal sound exposure meters) are used for noise measurement depending upon the requirements. The workers of some industries are particularly vulnerable to noise at work, such as construction noise, demolition or road repair noise; woodworking noise; plastics processing noise; engineering noise; textile manufacture noise; general fabrication noise; forging noise, pressing or stamping noise; paper or board making noise; canning or bottling noise and workplace noise in foundries.

Quest Technologies is a leading manufacturer of reliable and accurate sound level meters, analysers, noise dosimeters. No matter what kind of noise you want to measure, in an open environment or noise coming from a single source, we have the right noise dosimeter.