For those who carry the ringing long after the shift ends.
Don’t go deaf on the construction site: Understanding Construction Site Hearing Loss
| Source | Typical dB Level | Safe Exposure Time | Equivalent Loudness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whisper or quiet talk | 30–40 dB | Unlimited | — |
| Conversation on site | 70 dB | 24 hours | Urban street noise |
| 360 excavator cab (windows open) | 90–95 dB | 1 hour | Power mower |
| Diesel bowser jet wash (no muffler) | 95–100 dB | 30 minutes | Motorcycle at full throttle |
| Telehandler reversing alarm | 97 dB | 45 minutes | City bus acceleration |
| Air compressor (diesel) | 100 dB | 15 minutes | Heavy truck traffic |
| Music blasting in van | 100–110 dB | 5 minutes | Headphones at max |
| Concrete pump under load | 105 dB | 10 minutes | Chainsaw |
| Stihl saw cutting curbs | 115 dB | 1–2 minutes | Rock concert front row |
| Pneumatic pecker / jackhammer | 120 dB | 30 seconds | Jet engine at 100 ft |
Jim Morrison once sang in front of walls of sound that shook the rafters and the nervous system. Stage monitors in the late sixties could hammer out 115–120 decibels, loud enough to make the air feel solid in your chest. At that level, sound stops being music and starts being physics. It hits with the same force as a Stihl saw biting into concrete or a pecker breaking asphalt a few feet from your boots. Different tools, same violence. Different decade, same danger. Don’t go deaf on the construction site – guard what you’ve got left.
On a construction site the instruments are different but the tune is the same. Concrete saws. Air compressors. 360s. Telehandlers. Peckers. A mechanical symphony that often crosses 100 dB before lunch. That’s loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage in minutes. Most of the time nobody reacts because the damage arrives slowly and quietly. Don’t go deaf on the construction site just because the noise feels normal.
Sound is measured in decibels. It’s a logarithmic scale. Every 3 dB increase doubles sound intensity. The safe exposure line is around 85 dB for eight hours. Every 3 dB above that halves the time. At 100 dB you have minutes. At 115 dB you have seconds. The ears don’t warn you. You walk away thinking you’re fine and years later the top end of your hearing is gone. The kettle whistle. The detail in a conversation. The music you used to love. Hair cells don’t grow back once they’re gone.
Awareness of construction site hearing loss is crucial for all workers to protect their long-term health.
What the numbers really mean on site
Hearing loss and tinnitus aren’t small inconveniences. They affect the whole system. People with chronic tinnitus often struggle with sleep, stress, blood pressure, mood and concentration. The brain is constantly trying to fill in missing sound. That effort wears the mind down over time.
Noise on site has always been tied to pride. Loud machine means hard work. But that kind of pride has a price. The silence that follows isn’t rest. It’s damage. And because hearing loss doesn’t show it rarely gets spoken about. We talk about boots, hi viz and gloves. The next phase of safety is hearing. Quiet is not softness. It is maintenance. The future tradesperson will know torque and tensile strength but also exposure curves. The tools that build our world shouldn’t destroy our senses.
Simple ways not to go deaf on the construction site
- Keep plugs or defenders on you at all times – in the van, in your pocket, clipped to your belt.
- Use proper rated protection for the job: light plugs for short, lower-noise tasks, defenders for saws, breakers and pumps.
- Step back from the source when you can. Distance drops the dose.
- Rotate loud tasks between people rather than giving one person all the noise.
- Kill idle noise. Compressors, pumps and generators don’t need to scream away untouched all day.
- For the UK rules on noise at work, the HSE guidance on hearing protection is worth ten quiet minutes with a brew. For more pieces like this, keep an eye on the construction publication From The Boots Up.
Jim Morrison had amplifiers. We have excavators. The ears pay either way. Don’t go deaf on the construction site for the sake of a few pennies for a pair of plugs.
Preventing Construction Site Hearing Loss
Whisper-level talk sits around 30–40 dB. A normal chat on site is about 70 dB. Most diesel kit under load will push past 95 dB without trying. A pecker or concrete saw can slam into the 115–120 dB range – the same as standing at the front barrier of a rock gig. At that point your safe time isn’t “all shift”, it’s seconds. Once you see the day through that lens, “don’t go deaf on the construction site” stops being a slogan and becomes another part of the job: set the levels, protect the gear, get home with everything still working.
From the boots up
Editorial