Night Work in your Neighborhood?
Night work is becoming more and more prevalent for densely populated areas. Even in Vermont.
It’s a mixed bag no matter which way you proceed with a paving project on a major route in Vermont. Either you pave during the day with potentially major delays, or you pave at night and burden the local residents.
Paving at night does help to reduce the impact on local businesses and has the added bonus of being during off peak travel times - especially in our brave, little State where it feels like everything closes at 5:00 p.m. This can be helpful to encourage access to businesses within the construction zone, through and local travel, and doesn’t impede school or work routines.
It does, however, pose an inconvenience to residents. Night work comes with heavy equipment and that comes with noise. There are also requirements for lighting throughout the work zone. Evening work zones may impact local restaurants or entertainment venues.
Tips for co-living with night work.
As a resident of Vermont living off U.S. Route 7 with two small children, here is how I would survive night work through my town.
Invest in some black out curtains. Everyone thinks of noise when they think of road work and they don’t necessarily think of light. There are strict contract requirements on lighting all along the work area. If I didn’t have them already, I would make sure that my bedrooms all have some black out curtains to block the lights from the project.
Sound machines. Everywhere. The good news is that most night work contracts in residential areas do have some requirements for noise restrictions. They typically also require testing and monitoring equipment be on site to ensure these restrictions are being met. That said, sound machines set up where the noise is likely to come from (i.e. the windows nearest the street, open hallway doors, etc.) are a good idea to have and to begin to get accustomed to sleeping with before construction starts. I would run them on a white noise setting all night long.
Essential Oils diffusers. I actually don’t mind the smell of pavement, but some people can be very sensitive to strong smells while they are sleeping. An essential oil diffuser could be helpful to set up and try sleeping with all night before hand.
Move… around. If there is a particularly bad operation where the light, noise, or maybe even the smell of the pavement is getting to us, I might look at moving my kids to different parts of the house, camping in the living room, or even camping at a friend’s house who isn’t experiencing construction. It can be difficult to identify these types of situations ahead of time, but construction moves in waves. If you are getting weekly email updates about the project, you might pay attention to what operations didn’t work for you and inquire if they may do the same thing sometime in the future. If you know it’s going to happen again, you can come up with a plan for navigating that. Timing can be hard to pinpoint with construction as there are so many variables, but it might work out just fine and who doesn’t love a random camping excursion?
Keep Shopping Local. Don’t forget about your neighbors operating their businesses while construction is active - the restaurants, the venues, etc. - and make it a point to support them. There are many ways to keep our local economies alive in this modern era, but one of the best ways is still walking down the street to the pub.
Remember, this is all temporary. Construction is going to last for the summer or maybe two summers, yes. That does seem like a long time. But remember, your house is only located in a part of that project. The operations are always moving along. It might be really bad for a night or two, maybe even a week as they work directly outside your residence, but there will be reprieves. If there isn’t, speak up for yourself and your family and contact the project.
Once construction is done, you can find your way back to normal in a place of no-sound-machine-essential-oiled-black-out-curtain bliss. And, you can even pull out of your driveway onto a freshly paved road. Who doesn’t love that?
Best of luck with your nightwork, my fellow Vermonters. And, as always, travel well.