The new electricity bill continues to generate debate among users, both on the street and on social media. The rate with three defined bands does not seem to appeal to users since they will have to be very aware of the most favorable hours to put the appliances that consume the most, such as washing machines or vacuum cleaners, for example.
In this sense, the first confrontations between neighbors who try to take advantage of the hours when the rate is lowest have already begun to take place. The problem is that the hours where the rate is considered the cheapest are those that exceed midnight, so the noise has skyrocketed in many neighborhood communities.
A few days ago the publication of a Twitter user went viral where he showed a poster that they had put up in a neighborhood block. In this poster, a neighbor asked that they not put washing machines at night, and another answered him that if they paid his electricity bill.
The psoe destroys the coexistence pic.twitter.com/eEJNZtjr6i
– abel cobos (@Abcoal) June 3, 2021
It is just one example of how much tension can go with the new electricity rate, but can our neighbors report us?
Neighborhood complaints for noise
The answer is quite blunt: yes. The maximum noises in the communities of owners are regulated by various laws and ordinances such as the Noise Law, Horizontal Property Law or the Building Planning Law.
Cities such as Barcelona, Valencia or Zaragoza already have ordinances referring to this in which the use of household appliances with higher consumption and higher noise are expressly prohibited in the ‘off-peak’ of the new electricity bill. That means that after 23 you cannot put washing machines for example.
How many decibels attract the attention of the neighbors?
According to the municipalities, this can vary considerably, but in general, during the day, with reaching 45 decibels, they could already attract our attention.
At night this measure becomes much more restrictive, since decibels are at 35 and even 30 in some areas, so noise is greatly reduced.
For example, a washing machine, in its normal noise level during the wash cycle, is usually around 46 decibels , in the worst case, there are washers that can exceed 50 in options such as spinning.
So, as consumers, we must think very well when to put a washing machine in order not to have problems in our community, but not to pay a high bill at the end of the month.
