How noisy is a heat pump?

Are heat pumps noisy?

When I first started installing hot water heat pumps about 7 years ago I was restricted as to the location of the unit. It couldn’t be near a living room window and certainly not near a bedroom window. This was due to the noise that the heat pump fan produced during operation.

If a heat pump had to go near a bedroom window there was a few things I could do. One was to put it on a timer so that the unit wouldn’t operate after 8pm another was to extend the pipe work so that the tank stayed near the bedroom window and the heat pump itself was moved up to 9 m away from the tank.

Unfortunately I have seen and heard about many heat pumps that have been installed without consideration to the noise they generate. This has earned the heat pump a reputation of being too noisy. This reputation has caused consumers to be nervous about heat pumps causing them shy away from a great technology.

These days when I install a high efficient heat pump I don’t have to consider the noise aspect. They are very quite with noise levels being as low as 38db which is just above a whisper but let me remind you not all heat pumps are the same and you should do your research.