Is Your Refrigerator Running? So Where's the Chugga-Chugga?

By Bradford McKee
Published: January 20, 2005

Gregg Matthews for The New York Times
CHILL General Electric’s 42-inch-wide Monogram refrigerator reduces clatter by running at a constant low hum. Price: $5,399 to $5,599.

WITH all our costly appliances making noise around the house, it's a wonder we as a people haven't gone berserk. Even after the Xbox is put away and the kids and Chris Matthews are down for the night, there are still more whirring, humming and thrumming devices than ever assaulting the homebody's shrinking mental space.

Some, like cellphones and e-mail bells, can be shut off (if you dare). But as for the remaining industrial racket, what are you going to do, unplug the refrigerator? Forgo the microwave and let the leftovers thaw in real time?

The major home appliance makers are onto the public's growing aversion to noise. They exhibited here Jan. 13 to 16 at the International Builders' Show, an annual assembly of about 100,000 home builders inspecting every imaginable household convenience except hired help. Besides the customary overtures promoting high performance and slick looks, manufacturers have found another seductive way to sell their products: make them quieter and proclaim the fact loudly.

On the exhibit hall floor Bosch, the German appliance company, introduced an 18-inch-wide version of its Integra Vision dishwasher ($999), notable not just for its small girth (like those discreet dishwashers found in bars, only more luxurious) but for its quiet demeanor.

The dishwasher, which starts selling in June, runs at 48 decibels. (A normal conversation occurs at about 65 decibels.) It is so quiet that in case you don't know when the cycle has finished, a small red beam of light shines on the floor from the underside. The company contends that it would take 16 of the small dishwashers to equal the noise of one standard model.

The claim may sound overly dramatic, because two or even three dishwashers together are only marginally louder than one, said Alan Fierstein of Acoustilog, an acoustical consultant in Manhattan. "Putting two units together doesn't make it twice as loud," he said. "They could be playing on people who know a little but not enough about sound." Comparing the noise levels may be futile because competing manufacturers tend to measure sound differently, Mr. Fierstein said. They may measure sound at the front or from the sides, he said, or measure middle-range sounds only and not the lower-frequency hums or rumbles, "which are a lot of the problem," Mr. Fierstein said.

Gregg Matthews for The New York Times
BEANS Gaggenau’s CM 200 coffee machine. Price: $3,000 (top).
SUDS Kitchen-Aid’s Pro Line washer and dryer,$8,000 for the set.
SOAPY A new 18-inchwide dishwasher from Bosch’s Integra Vision line is slim and discreet. Price: $999..

Another problem is that laundry equipment is invading showcase spots in the house, which raises the decibel level in the prime living areas. There are new pressures to make the machines look better, but sound improvements have yet to catch up. It would be a shame to hide KitchenAid's quiet new Pro Line washer and dryer, clad in stainless steel with heavy glass doors and cobalt blue L.E.D. lighting, down in the basement.

The set, which costs $8,000, gleams like a trophy. "You're going to put these in your will," said Brian Maynard, the brand director of the line. The units beg to be conspicuously placed in a high-end kitchen or breezeway. But they must not be heard.

"Rather than insulate them, we have designed the sound out," Mr. Maynard said, though the units have insulation, too. On the washer, newly designed drain hoses absorb sound, as do a new shock absorber around the drum and a new coating that surrounds the chassis. Both machines have new rubber feet on the machines. "They're 20 to 25 percent quieter than the quietest ones out there," he said.

People who are irritated by background noise are probably already stressed and may not need quieter machines so much as a walk in the woods, said Raymond De Young, an environmental psychologist at the University of Michigan. "It does seem the average noise level in the home has been increasing," Dr. De Young said. "But there's noise outside the person and noise inside the person."

New appliances in General Electric's Monogram line don't promise to fix your personal conflicts, but they won't push you over the edge. The side-by-side built-in refrigerator, shown in the exhibit hall with wood-paneled doors (42 inches wide, $5,399 to $5,599), runs at a constant low speed rather than intermittently at higher speeds, both to reduce noise and to keep the house lights from flickering when it starts running, as happens with many refrigerators.

Sometimes, however, an appliance can prove too quiet. The new Monogram dishwasher ($1,249 to $1,349) is so quiet that consumers in test groups complained they didn't know when a load was done.

"It was creating a new consumer problem," said Valinda Wagner, the brand's product manager. Consumers tended to open the door before the unit had done its work. "They were saying, 'I get this big swoosh of steam, my hair goes flat, my makeup comes off, and then I don't know: Is it done or not?' " Ms. Wagner said. The new unit tells you it's done when a small green light shines on the upper right corner of the stainless steel door.

"Talk about research," Ms. Wagner explained. "We had to do research for where to put this bloody light." The company tried installing an indicator light on the underside near the floor. "But everybody goes, 'No, I'm not showing off my dust bunnies,' " she said.

Consumers, it seems, will go to most any length to ensure greater peace in the home. They will spend 20 percent more on Jeld-Wen's ProCore Quiet Door (filled with particle board and costing $150 prehung) over hollow interior doors. The ProCore door, shown last week in a new five-panel Rockport style, is not soundproof but transmits only half as much sound as hollow models.

CertainTeed, one of the large exhibitors at the show, packages its standard fiberglass insulation as Noise Reducer "sound control batts" to emphasize to consumers that a material to keep out heat and cold can keep out sound, too. The cost is roughly the same, said Eric Nilsson, director of the company's insulation group, but the product's modified look, like a long pillow, helps to answer the question: Did I get sound control or not?

Anyone who spends $3,000 on Gaggenau's new CM 200 built-in coffee machine, available later this year, would of course not want to hear the pressure motor, the water heater or the grinding of beans. They will hear less noise, at any rate, owing to the unit's refashioned grinding gear, said Vanessa Trost, a marketing specialist for the company.

Things that spin invariably make noise, though the new QT series exhaust fans made by Broan ($80 to $90) run "almost inaudibly" in the bathroom, said Patrick Nielsen, the product manager. They have wider exhaust pipes (6 inches, up from 4) and slower fan speeds than typical fans.

Yet the rub is that people don't want completely quiet exhaust fans, said Karen Collins, Broan's marketing manager. Because the bathroom is often in a public area of the house, she said, "People want a certain level of noise as camouflage." Noise, it turns out, can be a plus when it helps give you a little privacy.