As you may be aware, there are many benefits to having an Auxiliary Power Unit installed in your truck, not the least of which is the savings you achieve on lower fuel consumption. An APU can have a dramatic positive affect on any trucking business’s bottom line, especially when installed in the entire fleet of trucks.
But can a truck APU be a nuisance to the driver? How loud can and APU generator get while in operation? Let’s examine how loud a Green APU can get and see if it can be a bother to you or your truck drivers.
The Number of Decibels Heard in a Truck
What is the sound of silence? Well, in a truck, when everything is still and quiet, take a decibel reading and you may find that even in silence there is some sound.
A quiet moment in a truck provides 38 decibels (dBA) of sound. We can use that as a baseline to determine just how loud your APU systems can get.
Decibels for Regular Speech Patterns
Now that we know how quiet silence really is at 38 dBA, here is what the decibel meter would say when having a regular conversation in your truck. You may see a reading someone around 75 dBA when listening to someone speak in the truck’s cabin.
The Sound of a Green APU
With the Green APU unit running and no other noise taking place within the cabin of the truck, your decibel meter would read approximately 61 dBA. That’s slightly more than complete silence but not quite as high as conversational speech.
As you can see, an auxiliary power unit for trucks does not make much noise at all. In fact, you could continue with a conversation uninterrupted by the sound of the APU generator quite easily. So a Green APU is not loud at all, as it sounds more like a whisper in the background without causing a disturbance for the driver.
