How to read your result
The result is the sound level we expect at your neighbour's lot line, next to the day and night limit for your municipality. Night is when the lower limit applies and when a heat pump that is too small runs hardest, so the night number is the one to plan around. We also show how far away the unit would need to sit to meet the night limit.
This is a planning estimate, not a bylaw reading. Real measurements depend on fences, walls, hard paving, background noise and how the unit is running, and a bylaw officer can respond to a complaint without taking a meter reading. Variable-speed units are quietest at low output, and a quiet or night mode can cap the sound.
Check before you install. Bylaws change and some municipalities also limit where a unit can sit near a lot line. Confirm with your municipality, and for a strata, with your council.
How we calculate this
- Limits: day and night limits for each municipality are from the bylaw copies we opened on October 8, 2026 and listed on our heat pump noise rules guide: Saanich 50 and 45 dB (Bylaw No. 7059), City of Victoria 55 and 45 dBA (Bylaw No. 03-012, copy consolidated to 2015), Oak Bay 50 and 45 dB(A) (Bylaw No. 3210) and Central Saanich 60 and 55 dB (Bylaw No. 933).
- Victoria tonal penalty: the bylaw adds 5 dB to a measured level when the sound is tonal, and its definition of tonal sound names fan or heat pump hum.
- Distance: a standard open-air approximation, the level drops about 6 dB each time the distance doubles. This is not from a BC source.
- Walls and corners: our assumption that a hard wall beside the unit adds about 3 dB and an inside corner about 6 dB through reflected sound.
- Not covered: other municipalities, background noise, fences and screens, and several units running together (Oak Bay counts all heat pumps on a property together).