How to quiet a dehumidifier

I live in NJ and in my town bedrooms in the basement are not legal.

Build a plywood box around it. Line the box with carpet or some other soft material. Leave a few decent sized (3" ?) holes in the box to provide airflow.

That would help reduce the noise, however it could create a hazard. That could cause the unit to overheat, also it would not have adequate air circulation to dehumidify.

-udarrell

In addition to potentially overheating, it seems like it just wouldn't work as well, unless it had a really strong fan to circulate lots of humid air in through those 3" holes. The whole point is that it needs to pull in the humid air, pass it over cooling coils, and blow out dry air, which would not work well in a box. The air inside the box sure would be dry, but I have doubts about the rest of the basement. My advice: if it's a specific part of the dehumidifier that's rattling/vibrating, see if you can glue/clamp/rubberband/tie that part so it doesn't vibrate. If it's really the motor making all the noise, there's a chance that bearings could be bad or the fan blades could be unbalanced or something like that, but unless you're a confident DIYer, it would probably be more expensive to fix than it's worth. Try a new dehumidifier - pay attention to the return policy and try it for a week. Good luck, Andy

To the OP: Get a heavy duty timer. Shut the thing off during certain hours. Your daughter's entitled to silence when she's sleeping.

I live in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and they are legal here. Maybe you should move.

Of course my daughter is entitled to silence when she's sleeping. That's why I want to know how to make the dehumidifier quieter. If it's running all day and then off at night, I'm just wasting energy as the humidity builds up when the dehumidifier is off.

Is it fan-noise or rattling thats the issue? The best solution is to find a quieter model dehumidifier, but failing that, gluing something heavy to the sheet metal may (or may not) help. Is the machine IN the bedroom? Can you do something about reducing the noise going through the wall/door?

If it is a Kenmore, don't worry. It will break in about 1 year and then it will be quiet. I am on my 3rd.

Remi wrote: I live in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and they are legal here. Maybe you should move.

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One of the great humors of this newsgroup is the number of people who assume that their local zoning is pretty much universal. As you have pointed out, that just isn't true.

In our area, the major zoning requirement for a basement bedroom is that two exits must exist. One exit is generally the stairway to the ground floor. The second exit can be a direct exit "to daylight", a window which qualifies as an "egress window", or a second stairway to the first floor.

Gideon

Please learn how to reply correctly within a newsgroup thread. If you want to reply to the OP, then reply to his post and not somebody else's. It's not that difficult to do intelligently.

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JoeSpareBedroom wrote

To the OP: Get a heavy duty timer. Shut the thing off during certain hours. Your daughter's entitled to silence when she's sleeping.

My news server lost the OP's original message, so the thread began with "Re:" messages.

By the way: Please learn how to reply correctly within a newsgroup thread. Bottom post so your messages read in the way that's expected by the vast majority of literate people on the planet. It's not that difficult to do intelligently.

That last is mildly odd. The model codes require the separate means of egress to be separated by a fire assembly, (or something like that), meaning that a second stairway leading to the garage would be OK, but on set of stairs to the kitchen, and another one to the family room wouldn't be. (Unless the house is strangly constructed).

Apparently, the idea being that a fire that starts in one place shouldn't be able to block or smoke out both exits unless it's been burning for more than an hour.

replying to Remi, JonnyBoy679 wrote: Wow, some of these people answered everything BUT your question. I am also looking for a way to quiet my dehumidifier. I heard that capacitors are good for that. Although that is all I know at the moment, still looking for answers

Pulling the plug works best. You will barely hear it when you do.

Ed Pawlowski posted for all of us...

You mean it won't emit the "death rattle"?

replying to Tekkie®, Reg wrote: Not many useful suggestions and a whole pile of fuckwittery among the responses...people need to STFU if they can't say something constructive

replying to Tekkie®, Reg wrote: Not many useful suggestions and a whole pile of fuckwittery among the responses...people need to STFU if they can't say something constructive