Working in a quiet neighbourhood I am embarrassed enough about grinding and hammering noises (which I can't do much about), but do I think that it must be possible to significantly reduce the noise from the compressor. It's a fairly small one, and very cheap, so it tends to run quite a bit while it's trying to keep up...

I reckon the main sources of noise are:
1. The air intake.
2. The tank acting as a resonator.

I have sat the thing in it's polystyrene packing base to have a go at the tank noise (not much difference) and I'll try lagging it a bit next, but my main concern is silencing the inlet. It needs to be free-flowing but effective, so I thought - how about an old exhaust silencer?

Any comments, observations or better ideas? Have you done similar and was it effective?

Thanks in advance for any input.
Roger

Noisy compressors can be put inside an insulated housing with a vent in it. Even putting it inside a wooden box significantly reduces the noise. You could make a box and line the inside with a few polystyrene ceiling tiles.


Les.

i've just sound deadened the whole garage, polystyrene slabs inside doors then skinned over and insulated double skinned roof, it makes a huge difference.

i had the same problem with the fridge compressors at work waking the neighbours up. I isolated the base which got rid of low frequency transmission noises and used http://www.acoustiblokuk.com/ to line a wooden box.

The unit is almost inaudible when in operation.

Much of the noise comes from the intake. Try sticking a bit of hose on it. The hose itself acts as a fairly good silencer. You can then have the hose exit somewhere the noise matters less (under your neighbors floor for example?)

Si

make sure u dont block it though because you'll put stress on the motor

don't use an exhaust silence, you'll strangle the compressor..

you could use a legth of hose to lengthen the intake, as Si said, it should dampen it a bit...

you want to stand the compressor on some sort of anti-vibration pads, this will certainly quieten it down a bit.

The best solution, is isolate it from the ground, then build a vented, MDF box...

Even better, a double skined MDF box, with sand between the skins... a friend who is a sound engineer told me about that one.. we do a lot of work in my job with noise and vibration, as we build air-con and Chilled water plants for ships..