LOUD brand-new fridge
Our nice, quiet 30-yr-old fridge died, and we bought a new Whirlpool top-freezer one. The compressor makes a penetrating, throbbing buzz that closed doors do not shut out. The noise exceeds 57 decibels and is teeth-gritting, migraine-triggering unpleasant.
We bought the fridge from Home Depot, so we're limited to Whirlpool's one-year warranty. We had a Whirlpool-approved warranty repair guy look at it, and he said the noise is normal for new refrigerators. Whirlpool doesn't publish noise ratings, and we imagine they would cheerfully agree that this is normal.
Are we truly stuck with this noise? Do we have any recourse from Whirlpool?
Various internet sites recommend boxing the thing in with acoustic panels, which would about double the cost of the fridge. Would this approach help much, given the need to maintain air flow around the fridge?
If we have to replace it, are there any reliably quiet fridge models out there? The internet tells me that many other folks have really loud fridges, of several different brands.
Thanks!
Parent Replies
We bought a Fisher Paykel fridge when we remodeled several years ago because it was rated the quietest on the market. I think it's made in New Zealand so the dimensions may not be standard for the US. It's a little more expensive than American brands but totally worth it IMO for the reduced noise.
I empathize. We installed a high-end brand (Miele) and it makes a loud gurgling noise periodically, presumably when the compressor is running. I haven't measured the decibels but guests do notice and ask what the sound is when they come over. I requested a service visit from Miele's authorized team because I couldn't believe this was normal. Surely the device was defective. But no, they said it was normal. If they opened the device to double-check, like I suggested, they wouldn't be able to put it back together again the same way and the noise could get worse.
We love the fridge in every other way. I will say that the noise issue has gotten better. It is very possible that I'm just used to it, but it may also be that the noise isn't as penetrating as it once was. I do miss my whisper-quiet GE fridge from when I was a poor graduate student. It was white, gasp!
We bought a KitchenAid side-by-side KSRX25FSST00 at Galvin some years back, and it's very quiet.
So sorry, I feel your pain. We bought a top of the line Miele oven for the price of a used car, and it is painfully loud especially when broiling.
My husband says that newer appliances are noisy because they need big fans to keep the motherboards and computer components cool.
Quiet fans are available, but expensive and therefore not a priority for the manufacturers.
Thus, if you can find an analog appliance, it would be sure to be quieter. And there are machines out there like Speed Queen washing machines,
that don't have any computer parts, and work very well.