Noisy compressor - how to silence it?

[LS26]

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

[Les Henson]

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.

[Tonk]

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.

[pugwash]

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.

[simonr]

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

[kiall]

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

[freeagent]

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..