Why Choose Charlie Fleming Associates?
Rapid Response
We can normally carry out noise surveys at one or two day’s notice, to fit in with your planning application programme. (We fully appreciate the pressure you are under to get information to planning officers for committee meeting deadlines). If we say we will get the information to you by a certain date, we will.

No Disruption of Construction Programme
Even if work has started on site, we do not insist that it stops while the noise is measured, we can usually work around it somehow.

Competitive Fees
We can compete on price and give 15% and 20% discounts for retained commissions.

Fixed Fees
When we provide a quotation we stick to it. That is what you pay, regardless of how long it actually takes us to carry out the assessment.

Construction Project Cost Savings
Other companies’ methods can lead to expensive noise control measures being put in place which are not necessary. The reasons for this follow.

Other companies may leave their instruments supervised by a technician or person with no knowledge of acoustics. The risk in this approach is that the person may not notice if the measurements are corrupted by extraneous noise, for example, if dealing with traffic noise, that from local industry, trains, building works, aircraft, birds, pedestrians, wind in trees and other vegetation, etc. What, on the face of it, are slight differences in the intervening ground between the road and the measurement position, can also significantly affect the measured noise levels. Only the experienced acoustician can assess these in-situ and ensure that the measurement position used is not prejudicing your case.

Both these factors, of extraneous noise and reflections, would lead to artificially high levels being reported. In turn, this might mean that you have to incorporate expensive noise control measures in the design of the houses or flats which are not in fact necessary. You may loose a number of houses/flats for the same reason, having to build them further from the road, or construct an acoustic barrier in the form of a bund.

Some companies leave an instrument unattended for 24 hours. The problem with this is that you do not know what has made the noise. For example, the noise of gulls and crows early in the morning can be considerably greater than that of the traffic. This, together with other sources of noise, might again mean you have to incorporate expensive noise control measures in the design of the houses or flats which are not in fact necessary. Alternatively, you may loose a number of houses/flats because of a stand off to the road, or the construction of a bund.

Calculations performed by some other consultants, whose work we have seen, use quick and relatively simple equations, which err on the side of caution. In this, they tend to over-estimate the noise levels likely in the houses or flats. Again this might mean that you have to include expensive noise control measures which are not necessary. Charlie Fleming Associates uses very complex equations which work out the noise levels more accurately, and hence any noise control measures will be more precisely specified than they would perhaps be by other consultants.

Summary of How Using Charlie Fleming Associates Might Save You Money
In one year alone, we were commissioned 6 times to carry out work which had been done badly by other “acousticians”. In these cases the first fee, paid to the other firm, was a waste of money and accepting the cheaper quotation proved to be a false economy. More importantly, in one case, had the noise control measures suggested by another firm been implemented, over £100,000 would have been spent. Our more detailed measurements showed that the control measures were not necessary. In another, the glazing specification, prepared by the other consultant for a large housing development, was reduced once we had measured the noise and calculated the internal levels more carefully. In the other cases, the reports by the other firms were rejected by the planning officers, and the developments did not proceed until we had dealt with them.

This continues, every year with at least two jobs coming to us because other “acousticians” have not managed to carry out the work satisfactorily.

Better Service
We know, from what we have seen and heard, that our service is better than that offered by many of our competitors.