All houses make noise, and those noises can be useful in diagnosing and addressing potential problems. But if your house is driving you crazy with all its creaking and groaning, it’s time to look into ways you can quiet the house down.
First, you’ll need some data to work with—and you'll have to identify exactly what’s causing noise in your house. While some sources of noise will be obvious, using a simple decibel meter (or an app on your phone) to check noise levels from room to room will give you a more specific action plan.
Quiet down your appliances
One of the main sources of noise in your home are your appliances. Washers, dryers, dishwashers—everything that makes our lives easier also generates noise, and sometimes a lot of it. Most appliances operate with noise levels between 50 and 70 dB, so having several running at once can create a lot of indoor noise pollution.
Choose quieter appliances. Different appliances have different decibel ratings, so you can target quieter appliances next time you’re replacing something. You can sometimes find this in a product’s specifications, or you can look for appliances that are Quiet Mark-certified.
Use anti-vibration pads. Available in a variety of sizes, anti-vibration pads absorb the appliance’s vibration, reducing the noise it makes.
If your furnace is noisy, it might be worth it to bring in an HVAC professional to take a look at it. There are some simple things you can try that might make it run quieter, however:
Clean it. Your furnace, filters, and the vents it connects to can become clogged with dust, which can make it run noisier than usual. Cleaning the whole system as thoroughly as you can might eliminate extra noise.
Add rugs and carpeting
You might not want to carpet the entire house, but area rugs (or even carpet tiles) can offer some of the same benefits, muffling the sounds of people walking around the space. To enhance the benefits, put an extra-thick rug pad underneath to get as much sound absorption as possible out of your floor covering.
Secure your pipes
If one source of noise in your house is rattling pipes, either when you run the hot water (called “water hammering”) or when your heat cycles, you can reduce or eliminate that noise in two ways:
Install pressure-reducing valves (PRV). A PRV will regulate the water and air pressure in your pipes, which can reduce or eliminate hammering and banging. This isn’t exactly cheap (it can run you more than $600 if you hire a plumber to install one), but it might be worth it.
Behind those wall plates are holes in your walls, which makes it easy for noise to find its way into the room. By adding seals around those plates you can cut down the noise that makes it through. If you’re a little handier, you can also apply putty around the electrical boxes in the room, which will also blunt any sounds before they can invade the space.
Upgrade your doors
Even if you put down rugs and pads, floors that creak and squeak as you walk on them will still add to the overall noise level in your home. The good news is that you probably don’t need professional help or even any power tools to shush those floors. A few things you can do include:
Shim. If you have access to the underside of the floor, you can look to see if there’s a gap between the subfloor and the joist. If there is, inserting a shim or two to eliminate movement might solve the noise problem. You can also try driving a screw from either above or below to secure the floor. If driving it from above, use a trim screw and sink it below the surface of the floor so you can fill the hole with wood filler. If driving it from below, make sure the screw is short enough not to pop out on the surface of the floor.
For tile floors, you can check that the tiles are firmly adhered to the subfloor and re-apply any loose tiles. Then look for gaps around the edges of the floor and caulk them. This will help eliminate any tile shifts that might be causing the squeak.
Mitigate noises from settling
But those settling noises might also be caused by humidity and temperature, which can cause wood and other materials to expand and contract, resulting in cracking, popping, and groaning noises. Managing the humidity and temperature fluctuations in the home might reduce or even eliminate these noises.
Service your heating system
Shim it. A banging, clanging radiator can be caused by water settling at the bottom of the radiator. Elevating it slightly so it tips toward the boiler can eliminate that problem.
A loud forced air furnace
If you have forced-air heat that sounds like a battleship leaving port every time it fires up, you might be able to quiet it down without a major project:
Anti-vibration pads under the furnace itself can also help reduce the noise.
If these steps don’t help, your furnace’s motor may be the cause, either due to low lubrication levels, a failing belt, or some other mechanical cause. Your best bet will be to call a professional to take a look.
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