Unless your employer is providing you with an apartment, it is unlikely anyone will help you. Being "the responsible person" in China does not mean taking responsibility. As you may have noticed, anyone whose job is not dependent on their performance will not perform.

A related example. At my university, several of my students have told me the same story: They go to the office where they can put money on their dining hall card (in order to eat), and the staff there will be playing badminton inside or watching TV, and say (with an irritated tone) "come back later - can't you see we're busy?". And later, they're not there, because if you're not being supervised, why not knock off four hours early? They know that students have no recourse, and will be ignored (or punished) if they complain.

You could try the police, but unless you're a billionaire, and assuming you're a foreigner, the law is not on your side.

nothing you can do , nobody cares about one another , happens in my apartment building all the time. usually they tear out a concrete wall to make a bigger room. with cheap labor they sometimes do it by hand with a sledgehammer and no cutting with machinery.

I hear renovations going on all the time in my building.. sometimes as early as 7:30 in the morning. It's annoying and irritating and I tried complaining but to no avail. There's even rules in my building regarding times and days renovations can be done and weekends are prohibited but people still do it.  

Each apartment complex applies (or doesn't) it's own set of rules and that is something you need to take into account when looking for an apartment.

We bought our own apartment and it's in a nice complex which enforces strict regulations vis-a-vis when you can conduct renovations. It's a relatively new complex and new purchasers are required to have completed decorating / renovating within 2 years of purchase, no building on weekends, and only between 8:30 - 12 and 1:30 - 6 weekdays. If the contractors don't comply they send round security, if they still ignore security they pull the electricity for that apartment. So the rules are applied, you just need to find the right place.

Just checked C.C.P Handbook,apparently you can ?

They sure can. The neighbors upstairs always makes noises because they are fixing up their apartment. They usually wait around noon to start working. I don't think they will be working during the morning or night time. 

My building I don't think has ever gone 3 days without some kind of construction work.  It seems everyone gets a nice new house here, except me.  I'm about to start demanding my landlord do some updates to my house, it doesn't seem fair.

Most people in this country does not have the luxury of "weekend". If you are a grunt whose job it is to make as much noise as possible with a hammer, you are likely doing it 7 days per week. Our otherwise nice and quiet neighborhood always has the sound of renovation. Not sure why, all apartments I have seen that has been "renovated" would have been better off with a stick of dynamite compared to the original decoration. 

Our community does enforce some rules. E.g. it is not allowed to put up prison bars (some people have them on the inside of their windows, wow it must be a nice way to live) and during public holidays they will put up notices saying to not do renovation during the holiday. During one of the recent ones, I saw what looked like a painter, taking a swing at one of the community rent-a-cops for not allowing him onto the property. 

I had neighbors having renos done, sounded like small jack hammers starting it the morning all day, buzzing. I got back at everyone in my building by having a lot of noise coming from my apartment at night, but for some reason, I became the hero of my apartment building and famous locally.

Even stores called me '' their famous customer''

It does depend on your building complex admin rules, and if they do enforce them or not.  In my complex, reno work goes from 8 am until 6 pm, from Monday thru Friday.  Week ends and holidas, no work.  If someones tries, a phone call to the Admin office will get a security guard visit the offending party and putting a stop to it pretty quick.

Another thing they do here, workers are not allow to enter the complex by security at the gate if not during approved working hours.

It is technically against the law to work after 6pm or on the weekends or public holidays at any noisy renovation projects. As you've noticed no doubt from these answers, that "law" is only spotily enforced. 

I have had lots of success ending the noise in buildings I've lived in, but that's because I go about it like a Chinese person. A Chinese person doesn't attack from the front, but from the side. You call your building management and are very nice, but persistent. Then you call them again. And again, and again and again. Basically the Rule of China is "he who is most annoying wins." Not mean annoying, but nice annoying. Keep pushing nicely but firmly and there's a good chance you'll see success. You likely see no success at all if you run down and cut the cord on their hammer, try to call the police, threaten either the construction workers or the building management, scream and yell, etc: which is what I typically see foreigners do after they're driven to the edge of sanity by rampant thoughtlessness. 

Where I am there is a hotline to call for violations of noise ordinances. There might be something like that in Shanghai. In fact, there almost certainly is, if you can find it. And the whole thing will be easier if you can enlist some neighbors on your side, too. Chat people up in the elevator and see if it isn't irritating some other people, too. 

Would be nice if the laws were followed/enforced.

I live next to a massive construction site right now. Loud noises literally 24/7 unless the weather is bad or it's a national holiday.  I get woken up at 2-3 in the morning by construction noise, when I wake up early in the morning I hear nothing but noise. On the weekends nothing but noise.

As I type this nothing but loud banging and noises.

We called the company in charge of it once to complain and they just said "ok call the police"...... I took that as "yeah good luck at getting us to stop"

It's happening as I type. The drilling noise is so loud that it's like it is piercing through my skull, with the hammer banging in-between. They start at 8am and end at 8pm. It's been going on for a week now, with no break on the weekend.

8am to 6pm Monday to Friday is the general standard. 

You actually have to go and enforce it yourself. If you scream at the builders they will stop. They are probably all migrants in whatever city you are in anyway. If they keep doing it you need to make sure the building manager knows about your complaint and you should record that for future reference.

Still nothing, then you have no option but call the cops. Do so at the place that is noisy but stay outside in the hallway. It is the cops job and make sure they know that if they don't do something then the issue will escalate. Take photos of their uniform numbers and make sure you get their names. A sneaky picture of them in or outside the offending place could help in the future too.

The majority of what the cops do is dealing with this kind of situation.

I've been in the exact same situation.  I've lived in about three different apartment buildings in Shanghai, and there's always someone doing some sort of work.  More recently I had a situation where the workers were starting at 7:45 am on the weekend.  I simply put on my robe, went up the stairs and knocked on their door.  I tried my best to explain they were being too loud and they understood.  They took a break and started again at 10am. 

In another situation I called the police on the street workers.  They were outside making a lot of noise with a dilapidated crane at 2 am in the morning.  The police were very understanding and sent someone to check it out. 

I think there are laws in place for this type of noise disturbance but they aren't enforced and no one says anything.  So as long as you let them know it's a problem, you should be ok.