Shhh! How to get your appliances to pipe down

February 16th, 2012

Appliance Talk

Between the drone of the fridge, the rangehood’s roar and a gurgling dishwasher it can take a maverick effort to find a bit of peace and quiet at home.

“I once inherited an old fridge with a very dodgy compressor,” says Mark Bristow. “Every time it started up, it sounded like a combination of a truck driving past, an aeroplane flying low overhead, and a rocket blasting off.” Sound familiar?

We’ve put it to Appliances Online’s whitegoods expert Colin Jones to help us hush our household goods.

With close to four decades helping people choose the best appliances for their homes, Colin is quick to point out that some people are more sensitive to noise than others.

“It’s different for everybody,” Colin says. “You might think that an appliance is running quietly and someone else can think that it’s noisy.”

Sure, OK, but what we really want to do is reduce the hullabaloo by knowing which brands have a quiet fridge, a quiet rangehood, a quiet dishwasher, and a quiet washing machine.

Colin laughs. “It’s hard to put it all on the appliance,” he says. “In the kitchen for example it depends on your flooring.”

A quiet fridge

“Floors in the kitchen will absorb the vibrations from a fridge’s motor differently. A fridge on terracotta tiles will sound louder than a fridge on carpet.”

Who has a carpeted kitchen though?

“That’s right, so a good sound-absorbing option would be cork tiles,” Colin says. Wooden floorboards and vinyl (lino) are also sound-effective options.

Another factor that can influence noise is whether the fridge has been placed in an alcove. When you position a fridge in a recess noise can echo in the space around it and come out of the sides.

A quiet rangehood

This really boils down to the size of the motor. Larger rangehoods will have correspondingly larger motors and therefore make more noise. Think about the size of your stove and kitchen in general. Think about how much you cook. If you are a prolific cook you’re better off with a quality, perhaps larger rangehood and a bit of noise will be part of the deal.

A quiet dishwasher

European dishwashers such as Bosch and Asko have a reputation for being discreet. And it’s well earned, says Colin.

But for the best possible result the dishwasher needs to be a new application – as in, installed in a brand new kitchen. Some dishwashers are sold without the top and side panels so that they can be fitted precisely and snugly into a new kitchen. By removing the space between the side of the dishwasher and other paneling we reduce the (vibration) noise dramatically.

A front loader is a no brainer

A quiet washing machine

It’s a no brainer, according to Colin. “If you want a quiet washing machine get a front loader, every day of the week.” Quite simply, the washing action of a top loader requires more movement and therefore makes more noise.

“The tumbling washing action of a front loader requires a smaller motor than the backwards and forwards action of a top loader. More gearing and more movement means more noise in a top loader.”