THE NOISE CHAP
Competence for noise assessments
The chap wandering the highways of the UK and waving noise meters around with reckless abandon.
New York ● Paris ● Dubai ● Hong Kong ● Rio ● Singapore ● Beijing
These are all places where I don’t have an office and have never worked.
2023 is long-past now and marked 30 years of experience in doing workplace noise assessments.
(That’s a bit tragic to be honest. What happened to hopes and dreams?)
The Noise Chap is me, Adam, with the name saying exactly what it does, I am a chap who does workplace noise assessments.
My background
Back when I had a proper job I had the frankly ridiculous job title of ‘Global Director Health, Safety and Environment’, based in Chester, UK, working for an American company with production facilities all around the world.
In 2005 I’d had enough of that life so quit to go self employed, forming a health and safety consultancy. That grew to around 11 on-site personnel undertaking noise assessments, hearing testing, fire risk assessments and general health and safety works. I myself focused on the noise assessments.
In 2016 that was sold to become part of one of the big nationals so I could focus back just on the stuff I am quite nerdy about and being a bit weird, enjoy doing, noise stuff in workplaces. No health and safety, nothing where the answer could be ‘wear a high vis’.
Qualifications and competence for noise assessment
I hold:
Certificate of Competence in workplace noise assessment from the Institute of Acoustics.
The NEBOSH Diploma
Am a current member of the British Society of Audiology and certified in Workplace Audiometry.
That combination means I understand noise risks in the workplace, understand how it links into health and safety and health and safety management principles, and have a really good understanding of the physiological impacts on hearing of excess noise.
I used to be CMIOSH as well but with the dropping of all health and safety works except noise, that became rather irrelevant. Maintaining current CPD on things like asbestos, working at heights, confined spaces, and so on all became irrelevant to what I do so was not worth continuing.
For experience, I have personally conducted noise assessments numbering well into the thousands now, in everything from farms to joinery workshops, food factories to NHS hospitals, on ships at sea and in old-fashioned welding fabrication shops, for the British Army and for nightclubs, and everything between. There can barely be an industrial estate in the UK which I have not haunted at some point with noise meters.
By the way, if you ever want to feel properly out of place try doing a noise assessment in a nightclub - 200 pissed people all wanting to bellow down the end of a noise meter while you stand there like some lonely safety herbert.
My business ethos
My business ethos is to develop ongoing relationships with a small number of clients, and provide high quality and reliable noise assessment which make them want to come back again in the future.
As I am just me, with almost no overheads, I have the ability to provide a level of service that other providers can only dream of, but at a price which is extremely keen.
As a noise nerd where you are dealing directly with me as the noise assessor, I have a vested interest in making sure every noise assessment is done correctly, not just churning through them, and I stand-by every result I provide. I have no faceless corporate office to hide behind giving complete accountability for the noise assessments I do.
The Noise Chap Ltd vs me as The Noise Chap
In 2025 I have switched from the Limited company to a sole trader model, still as The Noise Chap, nothing has changed other than now being registered with HMRC as a sole trader - same noise assessments done by the same person to the same standards. The only reason for this was Mr Starmer’s changes to Employer’s National Insurance - in the limited company I was the only employee and in order to pay myself a salary I had to pay income tax and national insurance the same as everyone else, fair enough, but I also had to pay Employer’s National Insurance costs on top. As well as increasing the employer's national insurance rate Mr Starmer and chums also got rid of an exemption for owner-directors in a small business meaning the combined effect was a massive jump in the costs of just paying myself. Effectively, to pay myself I took money out of one pocket to put in another pocket and in that process Rachel from Accounts stuck her hands in demanding a big fat wedge of cash on top of the normal PAYE and NI.