What Time Can You Legally Start Mowing Your Lawn In NJ

There's no worse feeling than waking up early on a Saturday morning, not because you're alarm went off, but because your neighbor already has their leaf blower, chainsaw, or lawn mower fired up and running.

Not only does it make you feel like you need to start keeping up with the Joneses, but now you're up hours before you anticipated.

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What Time Can You Legally Start Using Loud Yard Equipment In NJ?

This varies from town to town and from municipality to municipality, so the easiest way to get an answer is to check out your town's website.

I always use the rule of thumb my dad taught me growing up, cutting lawns in the summer to earn some money: Don't start the mower any earlier than you'd make a phone call.

So, to me, that means don't start any noisy yard work until 8:30 AM or 9 AM.

If you have neighbors who fire up the mower early in the morning, they may be violating NJ's noise ordinances Photo by Adlan on Unsplash

But, there are actual noise ordinances in Jersey that are there to guide us, which helps.

NJ's Noise Ordinance Explains When You Can Make More Noise

According to NJ.Gov, much like a business has hours of operation, New Jersey has some hours when you can make more noise than others.

In accordance with the NJ Noise Ordinance Act of 1971, you can make noise up to 65 decibels during the daytime (7 AM - 10 PM) and then have to bring it down to 50 decibels during the nighttime (10 PM to 7 AM).

If you're curious, a vacuum cleaner makes 75 decibels, so obviously mowing your lawn is going to make more noise than that, so just be courteous to your neighbors when you fire up the ride-on this summer.

What To Do If Your Neighbor Makes Too Much Noise Early In The Morning?

My advice would be to just talk to them, if they're mowing their lawn or firing up loud vehicles at the crack of dawn, ask if they could hold off for a few hours.

I'm sure you're not the only neighbor to feel that way.

If that doesn't work, you could probably file a noise complaint with your township, but then you'd likely be labeled as "that guy," and no one wants to be "that guy".

By the way, NJ is home to some pretty dumb laws you've probably never heard of before.