'We can’t escape it’: CRL fan noise drives residents to breaking point

Residents living above a City Rail Link ventilation shaft say the relentless hum of giant fans running day and night has invaded their homes, robbed them of sleep and left them with no escape from the noise. 

They said the ventilation fans at the new Karanga-a-Hape Station have become an almost constant presence, with the worst din hitting at night. 

Auckland Transport (AT) said the fans are within permitted noise levels but, after receiving complaints, the agency has agreed to change their settings to significantly reduce the noise. 

For Judith, who lives directly above the vent, there is no shutting out the sound. 

It follows her during the day through her home she used to love, forcing her to close doors and windows. 

When night falls, the sound hums outside her bedroom, which she said she can no longer sleep in. 

Judith, a resident in an apartment overlooking Beresford Square, is frustrated about the noise generated by the CRL Karanga-a-Hape Station. Photo / Emma Tavai 

She said the relentless noise has made parts of her home virtually unusable. 

“It runs 24 hours a day, all day, all night. Very rarely does it get turned off,” she said. 

“Sometimes you think it’s not going to turn on, then it turns on at midnight. But lately it’s been going 24 hours a day … for days and nights on end.” 

She said the worst part was knowing there was nowhere in her own home she could go to escape it. 

“We can’t live here. We just can’t escape the noise. At night it’s absolutely awful. It’s affecting our sleep.” 

Judith said she could no longer use her master bedroom or balconies and kept her doors and windows shut in an attempt to block out the sound. 

“We have everything closed, we have the TV on, we can still hear it. There’s just no escaping it.” 

Auckland Transport says the Karanga-a-Hape Station fans are within permitted noise levels, but their settings will be changed to reduce the sound. Photo / Emma Tavai 

Judith said residents were never warned they would be living alongside a fan producing this level of noise. 

“We were never told that there was going to be this noisy vent, this noisy fan going all day and all night. Never.” 

Judith first raised concerns about the noise last year. 

She claimed AT told her noise measurements had only been taken at ground level rather than from apartments above the vent. 

Further testing was then carried out from higher up, she said. 

“They thanked me for raising it because they didn’t know.” 

Residents living above ventilation fans at the new Karanga-a-Hape Station, in apartments like this one, say the noise can continue through the night. Photo / Emma Tavai 

She questioned the positioning of such a powerful ventilation system. 

“Why would you put a big noisy fan outside all these bedroom windows, outside all these homes?” 

Judith wanted the noise significantly reduced or at least redirected from residents’ apartments. 

An AT spokesperson said the fans were operating within permitted noise levels, but changes would be made in the coming weeks to make them quieter. 

AT took responsibility for the City Rail Link infrastructure on June 30 and had since received complaints from five people, mainly about noise at night. 

Five people have complained to Auckland Transport about fan noise around Karanga-a-Hape Station since the agency took control of CRL assets on June 30. Photo / Emma Tavai 

The spokesperson said noise testing had since been carried out inside affected homes and around Beresford Square, including in apartments and on balconies above street level. 

The testing found the noise was below the permitted night-time limit of 60 decibels, they said. 

The fans were needed to circulate air through the tunnels when trains were not running, particularly while KiwiRail workers carried out maintenance at night. 

After residents’ complaints, AT reviewed how the fans were running and had decided to change their settings, the spokesperson said. 

The new settings were expected to “significantly reduce” the noise and residents were told about the planned changes last week. 

“We have undertaken these additional measures in good faith to help improve the experience of residents living near the station and to respond to concerns that were raised with us.” 

The changes were expected to be made within the next few weeks. 

After hearing AT’s response, Judith said residents had little choice but to wait for the fan settings to be changed and see whether it made a difference. 

“It has to be at a level that is reasonable [so] we can sleep.” 

The long-awaited $5.4 billion City Rail Link project will open next month on September 13. 

Rachel Maher is the education correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. She also covers other topics such as Auckland issues, crime and local government. She started at the Herald as a breaking news journalist in 2022, before joining the Auckland team this year.