Forum Discussion
Noise problem at Telus building - 826 Yates St
For the past 13 days there has been a constant loud noise coming from the rooftop of the Telus building at 826 Yates St, Victoria, BC. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner. It's been going non-stop 24 hours a day. You can hear it from down at street level.
I've contacted Telus 3 times about it (various different people/departments) but they don't seem to have any way of contacting the building as apparently the building is temporarily closed(?). The phone number for the building has also been disconnected. The building is locked to the public. So it appears that no one is aware of this noisy equipment issue as I'm assuming they're all working from home during the building closure.
I've been advised by Telus customer service to contact the property manager for the building, but they don't know who that is and there's no contact info for a property manager on the door of the building.
53 Replies
Hi Deekay3884,
am sorry to see Telus Support has likely decided to ignore this issue instead of following through with a resolve. I was away, and being impacted with this NOISE after arriving home late last night was very disappointing. My contract with Telus is up in October, will be cancelling their service because of this.
Annex Yes, it does appear that we've been ghosted by Telus Support :( Rather surprising as they seemed quite responsive in the beginning and I felt like we were not asking for anything unreasonable. I'm a Telus Internet customer as well. I think there's a form we can fill out on the Telus website that guarantees a management team member will respond - I'll have a look and see if I can find it as we're clearly past the 2 month timeframe estimate that we were last given.
El-EricCommunity Manager
Hi Deekay3884 - no ghosting here. I did send an email to the team that was helping provide us with updates and they confirmed that there has been acoustic enclosures installed and some major repairs are under way.
Hi again,
I've left 2 replies here (and tagged TELUS_Support in both) over the last 2 weeks but haven't heard back. Can you please reply to my messages?
For reference, here are the links to both:
https://forum.telus.com/discussions/smarthomesecurity/noise-problem-at-telus-building---826-yates-st/167503/replies/173052
https://forum.telus.com/discussions/smarthomesecurity/noise-problem-at-telus-building---826-yates-st/167503/replies/173271
Thank you.
TELUS_Support Can you please provide us with an update?
1) What plan has the area manager come up with to minimize the noise?
2) What is the ETA to switch back to the main HVAC system and turn off the noisy backup unit?
TELUS_SupportOfficial Support Team
The main chiller has unfortunately failed and requires a full refurbishment. An order has already been submitted, and work is underway to have it refurbished as soon as possible. At this time, it's estimated that the process may take a couple of months to complete. The area manager is currently reviewing mitigation options to minimize the noise impact from the backup unit. Once the refurbishment is complete and the main HVAC system is fully operational again, the backup unit will be turned off.
Thanks for the update. So just to clarify, are you saying the estimate is for roughly another 2 months starting today or that the whole job is estimated to take 2 months? Because it's already been 7.5 weeks since the most recent equipment failure, so that's getting close to 2 months already.
Looking forward to the seeing what the area manager comes up with for noise mitigation. Hope it's in place shortly.
I just unmarked the previous solution as "solved" since, as mentioned above, this noise issue has started again 1 month ago and is still ongoing. This way anyone who finds the issue will not be confused why it's marked as "solved" when it isn't. I'll update it to "solved" again once it's fixed.
And yes, it would be great if we could get regular updates from Telus management every few days with current work in progress, estimated time for resolution, etc, rather than relying on me to communicate with the building manager. Also, other residents and neighbours in the area have been reaching out to me for updates after finding my Reddit post and this post. It shouldn't be up to me to be updating them - this should be coming directly from Telus on a regular basis. Some neighbours (myself included) are experiencing significant mental health distress as a result of this constant 24/7 noise issue that has been ongoing for 2.5 out of the last 3.5 months.
Either Telus management providing ongoing updates in this thread or providing a link to a status page that contains ongoing updates would really help. It's not the building manager's job to be communicating with the public, that should be the Telus management or communications team.
- TELUS_Support
Hi Deekay3884 - thank you for unmarking as solved and updating us. We've reached out to the team for an update into this situation. We appreciate your patience while we get an answer
- Hello official Telus support team,is there any update on this from your looking into it last Monday?Thank you,
Hello again,
Before I relocate myself out of downtown-away from this persistent noise for the weekend to enjoy some peace (I have been doing this since the noise began months ago).
But the question is, why does Telus not manage this?
Why is Deekay3884 tasked with working with the building manager?
Who is the management company?
Why must we wait at the mercy of a part to arrive?
And why is the HVAC system not shut off until the repair happens?
I work in property management and know that HVAC systems can be shut down.
Hi there,
I'd like to follow-up on this thread-this issue is occurring again and has been for some weeks now. My fellow neighbors and i are experiencing distress due to this, we are in a high rise building nearby. This noise is ongoing 24/7 and completely unreasonable- even with windows closed, it is penetrating our private spaces. Can you help?
Hi Annex,
Yes, the noise started again about 3-4 weeks ago and has been going 24/7. Agreed that it's very annoying and disrupting! I've been in contact with the building manager recently. Today he said the main HVAC system is offline again for maintenance and that they are waiting for some parts from Trane (the HVAC company whose equipment is on the rooftop) and he will let me know if/when they provide him with a timeline for resolution. I'll post here again with any more info I get.
I appreciate the reply and the information. Thank you.
And thanks for being pro-active last time, it was a great relief when it stopped for that brief period. Unfortunately, the city by-laws' wait time is also lagging, i have recordings from different times of day etc.
UPDATE: The reason for the noise was that their main HVAC system was down for maintenance, so the building was running on the backup system which is quite noisy. I saw workers on the rooftop for many hours this week and on Wednesday they finally finished the maintenance and switched back to the main HVAC system.
After almost 6 weeks of constant high-pitched noise 24x7, the ordeal is finally over and things are nice and quiet again.- TELUS_Support
Thanks for the update. We very much appreciate your patience!
- TELUS_Support
Hi there, we have requested that someone look into this. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Thank you, that would be great. Is there any rough timeline on when this will be investigate / resolved? The noise is still ongoing and I haven't seen anyone come out onto the building rooftop to look at it yet.
- TELUS_Support
We've heard back from the property manager. The noise is from the HVAC system and is below the required/legal level. Their team however is looking into ways to make the noise lower but will need a bit of time to implement a solution. We can't provide a definitive timeframe for it here today, but rest assured they're on it!
