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Real life use in adverse conditions

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New member, have been researching for several weeks, reading posts etc. Finally admitting I could use help, tested, thought it would be easy. Demo’d a set of I guess ric today. Yes, comfortable, no issues, brought forth clarity to sounds I could hear anyway, some sounds I don’t care to hear. Wondering now if my actual use would be more at office/home.
Question is for people who physically work in adverse conditions, residential/commercial construction, metal fabricating, cabinet shops, land development/equipment operators. I still do all those things due to my job.

Do you wear them all day at work?
From below zero to 100 degree temperatures?
Blowing dust, rain/snow storms, high wind?
When around or in noise conditions just wear hearing protection over?
Any issues with very fine dust, either soil or various woods from sanding operations?

Thank you in advance

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Edited

I’ve worked in “extreme” conditions caused by the use of a WORX WG512 Trivac hooked up to a leaf collection tubing system attached to a 90-gallon city organic waste bin. In the spring, I suck up fallen live oak leaves in my front yard, shred them in the blower, the shredded leaves get blown into the 90-gallon bin but a helluva lot of dust and debris leaks out through the not-so-great filter cover by which the tubing is attached to the collection bin. I’ve tried wearing just 3M dust masks, N95 masks, and finally a 3M half-face respirator with P100 filters https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FTEDMM/1 (filters out about 99.97% of particulates).

For my ears, I’ve put a tight-fitting over-the-ears set of safety earmuffs over my ’s but usually I decide I’m not going to be hearing anything anyway, so I remove my HA’s leave them inside but still wear the muffs to protect my hearing and keep all the cr-p in the air out of my ear canals. Perhaps for your job, you’ll need to wear your HA’s and if you had a remote mic or radio system, you could still hear your mates while protecting your HA’s from all the dust and debris on your job.

I get so dirty from the leaf grinding, covered with fine dust from head to toe that I have to disrobe on entering the “mud room” and take a shower straightaway.

Edit_Update: Forgot to mention also wearing vented plastic goggles over the eyes to keep leaf dust out of my eyes.

Yes, as an engineer no problem, with grinding dust, fumes, no issues with high temperature, it’s not uncommon to be up to 40°, definitely water is the biggest killer,I definitely don’t get snowed under,but always covered when it’s raining with a beanie or hat.
You can use your ear muffs, so long as they fit over, you’ll be good, I prefer not to, so I can hear everything going on around me, I just use the mute function if things get a bit to loud.

@user97 said:

When around or in noise conditions just wear hearing protection over?

My hearing is already -110-115db, so I don’t hear anything without them. Therefore, I don’t wear hearing protection (way too much feedback). So I have an extra program (second in list) which is set to class 4 equivalent, -25db. Works the same (for me) as if I was wearing hearing protection.

In high temperatures, newer ’s are fairly water-resistant. I just make sure I put them in the HA’s dryer when I get home, and I always wear a hat.

I think @kevels55 has mentioned a time or two that he uses aids with disposable batteries because he’s had rechargeable aids shut down due to being too cold. I haven’t experienced that, but this is only my second winter with aids.

WH

Yeah @WhiteHat, it happened twice with my Marvel 90 rechargeable aids in subzero temperatures… I recall someone else on this forum, I think they were from Canada? They had the same problem in cold/adverse weather, it is a known problem with Li-on batteries, Phonak is most certainly aware of this issue, as they swapped the rechargeable aids, for disposable without a quibble, even though my trial date was up by around a month! Cheers Kev :wink:

@user97 said:

From below zero to 100 degree temperatures?
Blowing dust, rain/snow storms, high wind?

I’ll assume degrees F for temperature. My Oticon More 1 miniRITE R aids are specified to operate from 5 to 40 C or 41 to 104 F. My older OPN S1 aids are specified to operate from 1 to 40 C or about 34 to 104 F. I live where we consistently have temperatures over 100 F in the shade in summer and I have not had issues with my OPN S 1 aids. (I was not wearing aids when I was working outside during our record high of 117 F.). I haven’t had the More aids long enough to have experience temperatures above the specified limit. I think the reason for the higher low limit for the More aids is the rechargeable lithium batteries - typically zinc-air batteries are specified to operate at lower temperatures than the lithium chemistry used for hearing aid cells. I did not have issues at about 28 F when riding a bicycle in winter with a bicycle helmet with zinc-air batteries.

I find strong wind, especially when riding a bicycle while commuting, is an issue for me when wearing my aids. I have a program, set up by my provider based on input from Oticon technical support, that helps some but wind noise is still an issue for me. I still use my aids on my bicycle as I wish to hear approaching vehicles, etc.

@biggar said:

I find strong wind, especially when riding a bicycle while commuting, is an issue for me when wearing my aids

Yeah so this is the wind rushing past the microphone openings, nothing but covering them up will help, eargear is what comes to mind, if it’s cool enough a beanie does the same thing.

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I wear my Audio Service G7s (similar to Signia C&G) for ski touring in the backcountry. Since I usually wear a wool hat above them I do not have issues with the aids turning off due to the cold. What I do recognise is a significant loss of battery life which is similar to other devices that are not designed for somewhat extreme conditions.

Ah, sorry. I ASS-U-ME’D you were celsius. Still a good idea to think about disposables, I would think.

WH

Sorry, yes, F not C.
When I was questioning the provider, they had a deer in headlights look. As if no one works outside in such conditions. I also wear a beany and hood in cold, but not always. Even my IPhone below freezing has dropped to shut off when in an inner pocket but taken out occasionally.

And wind, 12 mph constant now and my hearing is still good enough it bothers me as it passes my ears. I do ride a bike so I did read up on the socks for them along with a safety attachment. But without them I can still hear vehicles approaching from the rear. One friend mentioned hers often fall off during yoga in certain poses.

Another friend when talking to him said they’re great, I stream music all day. Hmmm, I rarely listen to music, rarely watch tv.

Hence asking the question as my hearing loss as such it rarely impacts work. So would I not wear them 10 hours a day? Would I only wear them for dinners out, but also read they don’t filter as we want? Or when spouse and I in separate rooms lol.

My assumed comment was to Kevin in fun, but I assumed F for you, since I can’t see many people working in 100C conditions. :wink:

You should want to wear them as much as you can, as it helps maintain your brain in top operating condition. Your brain is somewhat plastic and loses ability to hear if you don’t feed it sound.

If it is not appropriate to wear them (like when I run the snowblower) then I put in custom hearing protection and my aids go into a nifty little pouch. Or on my motorcycle (my watch often claims the sound levels exceed 110dBA on my all-stock bike. I think it is mostly wind noise) as another example.

All the best for your hearing!

WH

I work in construction 1/3 of the time as an engineer. My last hearing aids I couldn’t hear construction traffic behind me. My new hearing aids I can.
I use a full brim hard hat to shed water away from my ’s. I’ve yet to find ear protection that works with this hardhat. The hard hat vendor didn’t have anything. Thanks for the reminder. I need to find a solution now.

DaveL

Thanks for that reminder. Yes, my next project is hard hat required so if you find hearing protection that works I would enjoy knowing.
Though my hearing is good enough to hear equipment and most conversations, I don’t like the thought of putting on and off all day. Comes down to it, maybe only important meetings and around wife…

Milwaukee may have a combination that works.
I really like having a full (round the hat) brim. It keeps sun off my neck. Here the water that drains down from structure above is absolutely filthy until the building is enclosed.

Couple that—my hearing loss is due to exposure to noise. Not having hearing protection on my hat is stupid.

DaveL

I did not see anything on Milwaukee tools site. But Kleins tools, electrical, has the clip on for a round brim hard hat. Price wasn’t to bad.
Since I don’t have any aids yet, I wonder about the cup size. Looking at the pair I do have, they may not fit?

I used to work in construction, also used to work around large aircraft. For what it’s worth, over the ear earmuffs are well worth the price. I was given a pair of Honeywell VS130’s to put over my KS9’s whenever I was around loud construction sounds or loud aircraft. They lowered the sound of all the loud banging. I was still able to communicate with people despite having them on.

FWIW - With Aircraft, we’re talking about being a wingspan length away from a jet engine walking it into the gate, so I needed something that would help cut the sound out and not give me further loss of my hearing.

When I worked in construction, I bought a hard hat and bought earmuffs that clipped onto my hard hat from 3M. They did the job a little too well where I couldn’t hear anything at all and actually had to remove one side when someone was trying to talk to me.

I do wear my hearing aids all day at work, but that’s because work for me requires a lot of communication and I find it a hassle to have to remove my hearing aids, and put them back in when I’m expected to have a conversation with someone.

In reply to @user97

I haven’t made it into the vendor to check out the Milwaukee hard hats. I’m sorry. I want to make sure I don’t drop my hard hat when I dip my jaw down looking from scaffolding…
I’ve had my North hard hat for about 10 years. That’s way too long…the vendor didn’t have over the ear earmuffs that fit the brim around the hat.

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