Lot-line noise
Last updated: September 28, 2026 (CT). “Quiet inverter” is a 23-foot marketing number. Your neighbor sleeps at a different distance.
We take the class’s typical dBA at 23 ft (the distance most consumer ads use), then apply inverse-square spreading: each doubling of distance drops about 6 dB in free field. A privacy fence is a −5 dB lab credit; a shed wall in the line of sight is −10 dB. That is not an acoustic-engineer stamp. It is enough to stop you from parking a 76 dBA open-frame 12 ft from a bedroom window and calling it neighborly.
What the number means in a yard
Conversation is roughly 60 dBA. A bedroom at night wants something closer to 40–45 at the pillow. An open-frame 7,500 W at 23 ft is often mid-70s — that is a jobsite, not a patio. An inverter 2,200 W in the low 50s at 23 ft can be tolerable at 40–50 ft with a shed in between. Standby enclosures are quieter than open frames at the same kW but they run automatically at 2 a.m. when a branch taps the line; budget the neighbor for that, not just the hurricane afternoon.
Never box a portable in a “sound shed” without manufacturer-legal exhaust and cooling. People die of CO trying to be polite. Distance and a wall beside the set beat a sealed box over it. CPSC still wants 20 ft from openings. If 20 ft lands you on the lot line, you have a pad problem, not a dBA problem — move the set or buy an enclosed standby on the far side of the house.
After you like the noise, derate the same unit for elevation on altitude + heat and print fuel on the storm runbook.