Legal Time To Mow Your Lawn In The UK
For lawns to stay healthy and presentable, they need to be mowed. This is perhaps the most important task that needs to be completed in terms of lawn maintenance. It’s a task that you must fit into the busy schedule that you have. When it comes to planning when to cut your grass, you may wonder if it is too early to do so.
So what is the legal time that you can mow your lawn in the UK?
The answer to this comes down to noise and how noisy your lawnmower is.
In the UK noise levels is covered by “statutory nuisance” which is covered by “Environmental Protection Act 1990” This act has a section regarding noise at night from 11pm to 7am.
What does this mean?
Well it means that in the UK you can mow your lawn anytime you want except from 11pm at night until 7am in the morning depending on how loud your lawnmower is.
Generally, noise levels permitted by law are 34dB if the underlying level is less than 24dB, and 10dB higher if it is more than 24dB.
Approximately how loud is a lawnmower?
It is common for electric lawnmowers to produce around 70 decibels of sound, while petrol lawnmowers tend to produce around 85dB. Unlike cordless or manual models, robot mowers are quieter, averaging 55dB.
Large lawnmowers, especially ride-on mowers, are loudest when it comes to how much sound they emit.
As a point of comparison, human conversation has an average volume of about 60 decibels. As soon as sound levels reach 85 decibels and above, it can damage your hearing if you are exposed to those levels for an extended period of time.
You should expect that your lawn mower will be quite loud, especially to your neighbours, unless you have a robotic mower.
Therefore the use of a lawnmower during the hours of 11pm and 7am may be construed as disturbances, which can result in fines or, in the worst case scenario, criminal prosecutions. Lets not forget the fact that even if you tried to cut your grass during this time, you probably wouldn’t be able to see what you were doing.
However just because you can cut your grass from 7am right up until 11pm at night, that doesn’t mean that you should.
Mowing your lawn at the right time depends on the size of your lawn, your location, and how noisy your mower is. Most people mow their lawns on a regular schedule. The majority of the time, this occurs at the weekend or after work. In addition, if you work night shifts, it can be much harder for you to manage your time.
It is impossible to overstate how important it is to be considerate to others. When mowing your lawn during the hours of 9-6 (and later during weekends), you will not have to worry about people overhearing you if you live in a rural area that is secluded, but if you live in an urban area that is densely populated, it is probably best to mow during the hours of 9-6 (and later during weekends) if at all possible.
In addition, you might want to set the lawnmower aside for a few weeks and cut the lawn monthly instead of weekly. You will have an increase in the number of nectar-bearing flowers in your garden as well as an increase in honeybees and other pollen-collecting insects visiting your garden as a result of this. In the event that you do not wish to have a completely wild meadow in your garden, you could mow a path to give you easy access to other areas.
