Dehumidifier Decibel Levels Can Influence How Much Enjoyment You Get From Your Basement?
While alternative competitive offerings can be ranked on price, pints of water extracted per day and on room air exchanges, the issue of the noise they generate is becoming an important consideration.
Sound is a quality of life issue…
Basement space has become hot as Americans look to that area to provide a “construction-cost-effective” basement space for a Family Room, an Entertainment Room, a Game Room and even an extra Guest Bedroom.
With so much at stake in terms of “quality of life” who wants to have conversation or the ballgame drowned out by the Basement Dehumidifier noise as the unit kicks on?
Decibels Count!
The term decibel is most widely known as a measure of sound pressure. Some acoustic experts rate noise as a pollutant maintaining that continuous loud sounds diminish and eventually destroy hearing.
Normal conversation conducted with someone 3-5’ away measures 60-70db. A decibel count of 130 is the limit of healthy human hearing.
Here are some interesting numbers, collected from a variety of sources that help one to understand the volume levels of various sound sources and how they can affect your hearing.
Decibel (Loudness) Comparison Chart |
|
| Weakest sound heard | 0dB |
| Whisper Quiet Library | 30dB |
| Normal conversation (3-5′) | 60-70dB |
| Telephone dial tone | 80dB |
| City Traffic (inside car) | 85dB |
| Train whistle at 500′, Truck Traffic | 90dB |
| Subway train at 200′ | 95dB |
| Level at which sustained exposure may result in hearing loss | 90 – 95dB |
| Power mower at 3′ | 107dB |
| Snowmobile, Motorcycle | 100dB |
| Power saw at 3′ | 110dB |
| Sandblasting, Loud Rock Concert | 115dB |
| Pain begins | 125dB |
| Pneumatic riveter at 4′ | 125dB |
| Even short term exposure can cause permanent damage – Loudest recommended exposure WITH hearing protection | 140dB |
| Jet engine at 100′, Gun Blast | 140dB |
| Death of hearing tissue | 180dB |
| Loudest sound possible | 194dB |
Perception of loudness
Relative loudness levels are important insofar as they demonstrate that a 10-decibel increase will be perceived as twice as loud as the previous level or conversely a decrease of 50% from the previous higher level.
It is less important to understand the physics of this relative difference as much as to accept it as an acoustical phenomenon
Quiet is a relative term
Quiet to one person’s ears is a jet airplane to someone else.
From a recently conducted survey of the top selling basement dehumidifier products we were able to rank the basement dehumidifiers by ascending performance of relative loudness from lowest to highest.
There was a significant noise difference between the BEST PERFORMING brands and the rest as you can note from the data shown in the table!
| Again 16.5 dBA or 31.7% variance from the best to worst performing unit from a loudness perspective was significant! | |
| Brand | dBA |
| Dri-Basement Dehumidifier | 52.0 |
| SaniDry Basement Dehumidifier | 54.0 |
| Danby Silhouette Basement Dehumidifier | 60.0 |
| Dri-Eaz CMC100 Dehumidifier | 58.0-62.0 |
| Santa Fe Classic Basement Dehumidifier | 58.0-62.0 |
| Santa Fe Advance Basement Dehumidifier | 64.3 |
| Aprilaire 1710A Basement Dehumidifier | 68.5 |
If sound levels are crucial…
If sound levels are crucial to your enjoyment of your basement space, ask your basement dehumidifier about decibel levels. Many products offer a muffler kit!
Basement dehumidifiers are an essential ingredient for reducing moisture levels in your home, which in turn inhibits mold growth and dust mite proliferation.
January 24th, 2010
