Can a Chainsaw from 50 Meters Away Do Damage to One's Ears?

I was outside for 10 seconds and I hear a chainsaw from across the street that is around 50-60 meters away from me.

Will it damage my hearing without protection?

 

No. It did not damage your hearing. You're fine. Don't be afraid of such normal noises.

 

It won't damage the ear, but it might cause a serious tinnitus spike.

 

50 m is a pretty far distance, and not likely to cause damage from that far away.

 

This Friday I went to get a haircut and I did so at a quiet place with very little traffic and no background music and I asked only for scissors.

But as my AMAZING luck would have it, there were some people outside cutting some dead branches from trees with a chainsaw.

They were a bit to the right from the entrance and there was a total distance of over 20 meters, I'd say, from the noise source. Also, they weren't using the tools continuously and the doors and windows of the building were closed and I estimate there were there for about a bit over 10 minutes.

Plus, I was using musician's earplugs with 22 dB SNR and I could hardly hear them. The only other loud thing was that barber used the hairdryer to blow the hair away from behind me for like 5 seconds at the end. The rational part of me tells me I should be ok. Yet my tinnitus is spiked, a little more in the right ear which was towards the noise source from outside. No one deserves this.

What do you guys think? Do you think I messed up?

 

You're fine, you took all the right precautions. Just being overparanoid.

 

I hope not, since I use one from less than a meter away on a regular basis in the spring

 

That would for sure have damaged me. Actually this has happened to me and I had a permanent setback. I guess hearing is very individual.

 

Er, a chainsaw from 50 meters away could not possibly be more than ~50-60 dB; 50 meters is quite a distance, and these machines are mostly in the 110-130 dB range at zero meter range. I have spent a significant amount of time in the last 3 years doing audio volume profiling on chainsaws and other small gasoline engines, because I have to use them a lot.

We all have different sensitivities, it's true, but if someone was sensitive enough to be damaged by a chainsaw from fifty meters, they would also be damaged by routine conversation, doors shutting at normal volumes, etc.

The only things that can be damaging from that distance are jet engines and seriously powerful explosives; even a .50bmg, the most powerful rifle round in common circulation, would merely seem "obnoxious" at that distance.

 

I think it has to do more with the vibration and maybe the kind of sound waves the chain saw produces. It does set me back, so I cannot be around any of that, even with earplugs on...

 

With respect, there's no difference between the vibration from a saw and from a car's engine; the latter is more muffled because it's generally encased in a metal frame, but if you pull an engine block and set it next to a chainsaw they sound pretty similar.

What you're describing gets well into hyperacusis territory, which is a lot more complex than tinnitus, more poorly understood, and often seems to be even more connected to the way the brain is responding to things emotionally / hormonally than tinnitus itself (which is also, generally, some set of feedback loops between all these things).

I generally pretty down on "exposure therapy" and if these noises bother you there's no harm in avoiding them. But a chainsaw at 50 meters (or 20 meters, for that matter) cannot do permanent hearing damage from exposure time of ~several minutes, and only the very loudest saws at 20 meters would start to do damage over a longer period.

My saw is ~112 dB, it's an electric with a 14" bar. My dad's 14" gas saw is also around 110 dB. I would like to eventually get an 18 or 20" bar, but, I need to profile some of the engines for those with a decibel meter because I personally don't really want to run anything that's over about 115 dB. However, you can put a more power muffler on a powerful saw and reduce it pretty substantially. (I don't understand why more forest workers don't do this; it does somewhat degrade the performance of the saw, but if you're using a 10hp engine I'm not sure it matters...)

 

There's more to it that the decibel level, there's the vibration and the kind of sound wave they emit. The amplitude of the sound waves, if I understand it well, is different depending to the sound pitch, and it is higher for a higher pitch sound, and also it's more frequent I think. That's why it is easier to tolerate lower sounds than high pitched sounds.

But yes, I could not be near those sounds because my hyperacusis was severe. Down the road, over the years, I have developed some hearing loss, which is now an added problem... so this is complex, I have been touring doctors for a long long time... and got very limited answers and no answers to many hearing related issues, let alone treatments (no treatment for this).

My hearing comprehension and perception also fluctuates, sometimes it changes 5 times a day... just imagine...