When Condo Noise Is a Building Equipment Problem, Not a Neighbour Problem

Noise is the most common issue Ontario condo residents look up. Most of the advice written about it assumes a person is making it: footsteps, music, a renovation next door. A lot of condo noise isn't that. It's a fan coil with a failing bearing, a booster pump that's lost its isolation mounts, a rooftop unit out of balance, an elevator machine room, a garbage chute and compactor. When the source is building equipment, the question isn't "how do I get my neighbour to stop". It's "who maintains this, and what have they done about it?"

The law in two sentences

The corporation must maintain the common elements, and owners maintain their own units (Condominium Act, 1998, s. 90). Separately, s. 117(2) prohibits any activity that creates "unreasonable noise that is a nuisance, annoyance or disruption", and O. Reg. 48/01, s. 26 adds unreasonable vibration, odour, smoke, vapour and light to that list.

The Condominium Authority of Ontario's vibration guidance names equipment directly. Its first example of a common vibration source is "operation of the common elements including elevators, HVAC systems, garbage chutes or plumbing."

Signs the source is equipment

Not a diagnosis, but patterns worth noting before you complain to a neighbour:

• It runs on a cycle, not a schedule. A hum that starts and stops every few minutes, day and night, is more likely a pump, compressor or fan than a person.
• You feel it more than you hear it. Low-frequency vibration through floors and walls is typical of rotating equipment and its piping.
• It's worse in one place. Units next to mechanical rooms, elevator shafts, garbage rooms, parking garage doors, or directly under rooftop equipment get it first.
• It changed suddenly. Equipment gets noisier when something wears or fails: a bearing, a belt, a mount, a valve. A sudden change is a maintenance signal.
• It tracks the season. Heating or cooling equipment that only complains in summer or winter points at the HVAC system.

Keep a simple log: date, time, how long, what it sounded or felt like, and where in the unit. It's the single most useful thing you can bring to management.

Whose equipment is it?

This is where Ontario condos get confusing. The pumps, chillers, boilers, elevators, compactors and rooftop units are almost always common elements. In-suite equipment is not always. Fan coil units, for example, are owned by the corporation in some buildings and by unit owners in others, and your declaration decides it. Our guide to what the corporation maintains versus your unit explains how to read it.

What Ontario courts have done when corporations were slow

Two Superior Court decisions are worth knowing, because both involved equipment noise, and both turned on how long the corporation took.

Wong v. Toronto Standard Condominium Corporation No. 1918, 2022 ONSC 3409. The owner of the only ground-floor unit, sharing a wall with the garbage room, complained from 2010 about noise and vibration from the chute and compactor. The corporation did act at points: testing, compactor repairs, limits on chute hours, and later relocating the compactor. But after professional soundproofing recommendations in 2018, the response stretched out through a peer review and further testing, and when the owner went to court the corporation stopped the work it had approved. Justice Vella found oppression under s. 135 of the Act, citing "the inexcusable length of time the Corporation has taken to address Wong's real and demonstrated concerns about the functioning of the chute and compactor." The court awarded $30,000 in damages for 2017 to 2021 and ordered the remedial work to proceed (reasons; summary).

Wu v. Peel Condominium Corporation No. 245, 2015 ONSC 2801. A penthouse owner below the mechanical room housing elevator and HVAC equipment complained of noise and vibration for years. The court found the corporation's handling oppressive and assessed damages at $30,000 (Condo Adviser summary).

Neither case says every noise complaint is worth $30,000. Both say that when the source is common-element equipment, the corporation owns the problem, and a long, poorly documented response is what the courts looked at.

What to do, in order

1. Report it in writing to management, with your log. Say where you think it's coming from and ask the corporation to investigate the equipment, not the neighbours.
2. Ask what was found. Which equipment was checked, by whom, and when. A vendor visit should produce a service report.
3. Request the records if answers don't come. Using the CAO's mandatory form, ask for the service contract for that equipment, invoices and service reports for work on it over the last two or three years, and any acoustic, engineering or inspection reports about it. These are records the corporation must keep. Our free records request builder sets this up for you.
4. Know your routes. Nuisance disputes, including noise and vibration, can go to the Condominium Authority Tribunal. The oppression cases above went to the Superior Court. A condo lawyer can tell you which fits.

What this means for the building

The owners in Wong and Wu spent years getting a result. A corporation that can pull up the service history for the pump, compactor or rooftop unit in question, see the last technician's findings, and show what it did and when, resolves these complaints faster and defends them better. That's a maintenance record doing its job; our guide to the maintenance records your condo should have lists what that record contains.

This is general information about Ontario law, not legal advice. Court decisions turn on their facts. If a noise problem is affecting your health or your use of your unit, speak to a condo lawyer or licensed paralegal about your options.