I have a 7KW generator that makes a hell of a racket on a cold frozen night when the power is out. Is there a muffler kit that can be used on an air cooled engine, if so what type or suggestions on how to quiet this thing.
Thanks
No. It's a 10+ HP engine with ONE CYLINDER running at 3600 rpm. No muffler is going to stop the rattle, hum, and vibration.
What you may want to try is building an enclosure that will house the generator. The enclosure would be insulated, to dampen the noise.
The enclosure would have to be large enough to have at least a few inches of room all around the generator. You'd also want to leave open one side of the enclosure so that the exhaust had a place to go and also to prevent a fire. You could then staple either insulation on the walls and cieling of the enclosure or find egg-shell type sound proofing material to use. It will not dampen the sound totally but could help.
-TheKidd
Reducing noise will reduce your power out put. Talk to the manufacturer . But so what , it is an emergency generator. Right ? Noise should be expected in emergencys. maybe you worry to much, offer your neighbor Free Power in an outage. I would not worry, either way.
I personally would like to thank you for your consideration. Year before last during the big Northeast blackout, four of my neighbors fired up their generators. It sounded like pole position around here, and it was tough enough trying to sleep without any AC or fans, let alone the noise.
I have wondered (and worried) about the noise and my neighbors also. Here I am sitting watching baseball with my lights on while they were sitting around in the dark. Anyhow, I think I remember Home Depot selling a sound proof box with exhaust during the Y2K scare. It wasmade with the sound dampening type metal with holes, etc., like they use on the big air compressors at construction sites.
Does anyone remember more?
Mike
Last April we had a blackout. From the foot of my driveway I could hear someones generator at the end of the street (about a quarter mile away) but I couldn't hear my Honda in my garage. If someone near me ran one of those monsters at night... well, lets just say that it is not necessary.
When Ivan passed through Atlanta, we lost power for 3 days. ONE neighbor fired up a generator every night and the rest of us were ready to lynch them. It sounded like a huge aircraft engine was running.
Finally found out who it was and said that their noise was unbearable. She slunk away saying the family had allergies and had to run the dehumidifier. (And also the tv, microwave, stove, hair dryer...)
More power (literally) to the genny people, but if you could just make them quieter it would take the sting out of the cold and dark for the rest of us.
toller wrote:
But that is my point exactly. The Honda is dead quiet; sometimes I have to check to see if it is still running because I can't hear it inside the house. Okay, I can't run a hairdryer or oven, but who needs that stuff in an emergency anyhow.
It takes a lot more than a "sound proof box" to address noise from a cheap
3,600 rpm set. Even those packaged generator units they sell at home cheepo are really noisy.
They do make them quieter but people buy the home depot class machines. There is a 30kw generator where I work and you can hardly tell when it is running.
During the last power cut, I was careful to run my generator only during "waking" hours. I live in a trailer park, and don't want to do that to my neighbors.
My thoughts with the original poster's generator is to get a longer cord, and put it out in some bushes. Auto muffler won't do much good.
Yes, definitely don't want to be the only light on the block.
Sorry, don't know anything about a specific sound enclosure.
Did you tell her to put the generator in the cellar? After a half hour of cabon monoxide, she wouldn't care about the dehum. And then call the morgue truck.
It is connected, but I leave the front and rear garage door open a foot for ventilation. I have tried a battery powered CO detector on the floor a few feet from the genny, but it shows nothing. The Honda runs 8 hours on a gallon of gas. How much CO could it produce?
I definitely produces enough CO to kill somone, because there are incidents every year where people die after running them in their basements. A typical car can probably idle for 8 hours on a gallon of gas ... but it sure doesn't take that long for someone to kill themself that way!
I wouldn't take any chances - why not just build a little box with a roof for it and stick it outside when you need to run it?
According to TheKidd :
To amplify a bit more: a recommended approach is to build a small enclosure, with a couple of inches open at the bottom (all the way around), and a vent at the top. Then line the enclosure with insulation. Make sure you have SEVERAL inches of clearance all the way around the unit, and the bottom and top vents are clear.
Or just hook up a vent for the damn thing...
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