Top 7 Ways on How to Quiet a Noisy Furnace Blower - Soundproof Nation
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While a furnace blower can keep your home warm and comfortable during the winter, sometimes it can become a noise nuisance.
Although it’s normal for your furnace to produce a sound while working, it should be fairly unnoticeable.
Therefore, when you notice any loud popping, rumbling, rattling, or scraping noise from your furnace, you should repair it immediately.
Below are different ways on how to quiet a noisy furnace blower.
A-List of Ways on How to Quiet a Noisy Furnace Blower
A Faulty Blower Motor
A Damaged Blower Wheel
Loose or Faulty Blower Belt
Soundproofing Your Furnace’s Room
Soundproof Your Furnace
Soundproof Furnace Room Doors and Windows
Soundproof your Furnace Room Walls
Thickening your Blower’s Wall
Final Thought on How to Quiet a Noisy Furnace Blower
Since there are several reasons to make your blower produce an unusual noise, you must approach them differently.
You can approach them by fixing the furnace itself, the furnace room, or both.
These problems may arise from faulty blower motors, damaged blower wheels, dirty air filters, leaky ducts, damaged or loose blower belts, dirty burners, faulty heat exchangers, and more.
Since they are hard to ignore, here is how you can detect and fix your noisy furnace.
A loud squealing, knocking, whirring, or clunking noise from your furnace blower may indicate a faulty motor.
To eliminate these sounds, ensure you lubricate the motor regularly. Lubricating reduces the noise while keeping the motor performing optimally.
Even better, you reduce repair costs and keep running for longer when you detect the issue early.
However, lubricating your motor requires skill and knowledge since you must remove it.
For that reason, I recommend you look for a professional technician to do it for you.
They inspect your blower’s motor, advise you accordingly and repair other parts if need be.
Sometimes your furnace blower might produce a clanking or scraping sound, indicating two metals are grinding against each other.
In most cases, this issue is serious and commonly comes from your blower’s wheel.
When you hear such noises, chances are, your furnace’s wheel is loose, making it grind against your blower’s casing.
In such cases, treat a loose wheel as a serious issue and fix it immediately.
If you continue running your blower, it might increase the damage and cost more cash to repair.
Although simple lubrication may do the trick, opening the wheel requires expertise.
Therefore, we advise you to switch off your furnace blower and call a professional HVAC technician to make a complete diagnosis.
This problem usually arises from furnaces using belt-driven motors.
Here you find that the blower might start producing a squealing sound due to a loose belt.
In addition, a dry bearing shaft or other moving parts may produce a squealing noise too. The solution, in this case, is to lubricate or replace the moving parts for the long run.
Even if it might seem possible to replace them yourself, I advise you call a qualified technician.
Here, you get to learn the issue and specific solutions while the technician does all the necessary repairs on your entire system.
Sometimes during your furnace’s operation, its burner may start making a loud rumbling noise indicating dirt build-up.
In most cases, the dirt comes from dust or soot, clogging your furnace’s airflow.
Once you start hearing the noise, take immediate action since it indicates delayed ignition. Delayed ignition is dangerous as it can cause gas build-up, leading to an explosion.
Also, note that an unbalanced air-to-fuel ratio can lead to a loud bang coming from your furnace blower.
It indicates that your blower is not functioning efficiently due to a lack of complete air and gas. In this case, your blower suggests that it needs an immediate inspection and repair.
A professional repairer might detect this issue and do a thorough cleaning and necessary repairs.
In addition, we recommend cleaning and inspecting it once a year to ensure it is always safe and clean.
In most cases, your furnace produces a rattling noise due to a faulty heat exchanger.
However, the exchanger is not necessarily faulty but has a loose panel or screw.
Fixing a loose screw doesn’t require much skill, meaning you can do it yourself.
However, ensure you turn off your furnace before adjusting the loose parts to avoid electric shock because it involves using a metallic screwdriver in most cases.
Here, you ensure you inspect your furnace thoroughly and that the access panel is well secured.
If you notice the rattling noise is not coming from a loose screw or panel, it might be an indication of a more serious problem, such as a cracked heat exchanger.
A crack or splinter may be caused by a lack of airflow due to dirty filters, coils, or blowers.
As a result, your furnace gets filled up with carbon monoxide, which may leak into your house.
To ensure the heat doesn’t damage your exchanger, ensure you inspect it regularly.
Let’s now jump to non-mechanical ways of quieting a noisy furnace blower.
Although you might fix most of the noise coming from your furnace blower mechanically, sometimes it’s hard to eliminate its structural noise.
In such cases, ensure you soundproof its room for a significant noise reduction.
Here is how you can block the noise.
Magic erasers are good for both insulation and soundproofing.
First, it is excellent at soundproofing since it is made of melamine foam to prevent sound from going through it.
Additionally, it is excellent for insulation because it is a poor conductor of heat.
It works by curing itself into foam where its micro-structure hardens, preventing noise from reaching your living space.
Even better, they can be helpful when cleaning your furnace blower.
Start by making a galvanized steel sheet using wire mesh, and then sandwich your magic eraser with the sheet.
Use the magic eraser to hold the wire mesh to the steel shit tightly.
Tightening them together avoids foam from being sacked by the blower. Note that the foam is most effective when you use it next to your furnace blower’s intake.
Here are some of the most effective magic erasers available on online today:
Extra Large Magic Cleaning Eraser Sponge (20 Pack)
It is 2x thick and long-lasting
You can use it to clean different parts of your furnace blower
It is developed to clean all surfaces.
Sealing your blower’s doors and window gaps can significantly reduce its noise. Here, you use soundproofing curtains or blankets readily available on Amazon.
All you need to do is hang the curtains or blankets over your blower’s door or window. T
he following are some of the quality blankets and materials you can use to soundproof your furnace’s door or windows.
Moondream 3-in-1 sound insulation curtain-It is made entirely of polyester
RYB Home Soundproof Blackout curtains– it comes in 3 layers, and you can easily take care of it
NICETOWN Blackout Curtains– it is affordable and comes with an excellent material
There are two ways to do this: seal wall cracks or/and thicken the walls.
This technique involves inspecting all your blower’s walls to detect any cracks, however small they might be.
Once you notice them, seal the cracks to prevent any noise from passing through.
This process requires you to use an acoustic sealant, and we recommend liquid nails since they are relatively stronger and easy to use.
More importantly, using the dampen around the wall can also avoid vibration.
Start by inspecting your blower’s wall.
You should thicken it to prevent noise pollution from coming into your living space if it’s thin. You can add a drywall layer to it.
Alternatively, you can sandwich the wall between adhesive vinyl sheets or green glue to make it even more effective.
Due to temperature changes, a thud noise may also indicate an expansion and contraction of metal ducts inside your furnace blower.
However, this is a regular furnace operation and shouldn’t worry you. Above are some of the best methods on how to quiet a noisy furnace blower
Finally, ensure you regularly inspect your furnace blower according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
It helps your furnace serve you better and for a longer period.