After a few years, many pool pumps start to make a significant amount of noise. It can be highly disruptive; poison your relationship with neighbors, spoil your pool-time fun, and interrupt or entirely prevent your sleep. If you want to figure out what is causing all that racket and how you can fix that noisy pool pump, you’ve come to the right place.
First, let’s go over some general recommendations that can reduce the noise. After that, we will address specific noise-creating problems and how to fix them. If you have a specific problem, you can use this list to see if we address it.
General Noise-Reducing Recommendations
Soundproof or Sound-Dampening Covers
Insulated Pool Pump Covers
Insulated covers offer a fantastic balance of sound-dampening and low prices. These covers are form-fitting, so they won’t take up a lot of room.
While we certainly wouldn’t call them aesthetically pleasing, they are certainly better than a chaotic collection of water pipes.
We aren’t connected to the company NoisyPool, but they do offer good products. As you can tell from the name, this is their specialty. They claim that their products reduce sound by 75% to 90%, taking care of the sound issue for most people. They demonstrate the efficacy of their products with a before-and-after video demonstration and a decibel meter. They’re worth checking out.
Soundproof Box
In terms of effectiveness, we consider this to be the ultimate solution. However, it is a pretty expensive solution. The soundproofing materials don’t come cheap, so you can easily spend something in the ballpark of the $1,500 – $2,000 range.
If you are interested in purchasing a kit, we keep seeing a product called Acoustic Box pop up in our research. It is an Australian-based company, and they look pretty solid. We aren’t affiliated with them in any way, and we don’t have any personal experience with their products. That said, they keep popping up as the go-to source.
If you build it from scratch, you can knock the price down quite a bit. We can’t give a precise estimate because it will greatly depend upon your choice of materials. The most significant factor will be the choice between using sound board, fiberboard, or one of the many other materials that you could use. Sound board will be exceptionally effective at soundproofing your pool pump. However, it will bring the cost into the $1,000 range, and fiberboard will bring it into the low hundreds.
Building a box isn’t terribly difficult, so this option is viable for the basic handyman or handywoman. Soundproofing the box only slightly complicates the construction with a few additional sound-proofing steps. We aren’t going to give step-by-step instructions in this case because it isn’t an area of expertise.
Pool Pump Shed
When it comes to sound-dampening, there are two options that people purchase or build. You will often see a shed, and you will also see what we call, the dog house.
The price can vary greatly based on the quality of the shed that you are looking to purchase. There are decentish-looking sheds that you can pick up for $200. They are plastic, but they will help to limit the pool pump’s noise.
If you want galvanized steel, it will cost you hundreds more. If you want wood, you will likely get into the $1,000s. If you are purchasing the shed purely for its sound dampening properties, these more expensive options become illogical. For that specific motivation, it would be better to purchase a new and quieter pool pump…if you were forced to choose between those two purchases. Also, there are other cheaper alternative solutions that will likely work for you.
Dog House
You could always choose the option that looks like a dog house. They can take a few shapes. One will look like a box and the next will look like a miniature A-frame house. Whatever shape it takes, the important thing is to cover the top and sides as much as possible. It gives the sound a partial barrier. You can build these yourself with a bit of plywood and a handful of nails.
There are also small square plastic enclosures with a typical price range of $25 to $100. These inexpensive options will not block the sound as thoroughly as a shed. However, some claim that they can reduce the sound by as much as 50%. That’s not bad. Depending upon the quality of the product, it might even improve the visual appeal of that ugly pool pump.
Using a Sand Filter? Switch to a Cartridge Filter
Sand filters are a common choice for many pools. They are typically the least expensive of the filters, and they do a decent job removing the daily gunk from the pool. Unfortunately, they are also a bit noisy.
A sand filter sends the filtering water through a standpipe and eight to ten tubes called laterals. A cartridge filter will not need to do that in its filtration process, and that can cut out a varying but decent amount of noise.
Dampen the Noise with a Pool Pad
Sounds are vibrations. If you can direct some of those vibrations into a pool pad, it will reduce the noise being broadcast into the air. There are a few varieties of pool pads: concrete, rubber, and carpet.
There are lots of ways that noise can be generated from a pool pump. If the noise you are hearing is largely due to the shaking vibrations running throughout the pool pump, a pool pad could help out quite a bit.
There is a simple way to test for this. Put your hands atop a sturdy portion of the pool pump and apply a downward force. If the noise stops or significantly reduces, a pool pump pad could really help absorb that noise.
Replace Pool Pump with Quieter Model
If your pool pump just isn’t worth saving, you could always replace it with a quieter better-performing model. We’ve actually touched on the subject of quiet pool pumps before now.
We’ve pulled the list of the quietest pool pumps. The order isn’t a statement about their quality, we just alphabetized them for easy reading. There’s a lot of relevant information that can’t fit on this table. If this list interests you, it might be worth your time to click over to the article, “What Are The Quietest Pool Pumps? Here’s the List!”
| Company | Pump Name | Horsepower, Speed | Price (Mostly Amazon) |
| Harris | H1572730 ProForce | 1.5 HP, Single-speed | $199 |
| Hayward | SP1580X15 Power-Flo LX | 1.5 HP, Single-speed | $289 |
| Hayward | SP2303VSP MaxFlo VS Variable Speed | 1.65 HP, Variable Speed | $1,322 |
| Hayward | SP2607X10 | 1 HP, Single-speed | $519 |
| Hayward | W3SP3202VSP TriStar | 1.85 HP, Variable-speed | $1,149 |
| Pentair | 011018 IntelliFlo | 3 HP, Variable-peed | $1,379 |
| Pentair | 340039 SuperFlo | 1.5 HP, Single-speed | $524.99 |
| Pentair | 342001 SuperFlo VS Variable Speed | 1.5 HP, Variable-speed | $1,195 |
| Pentair | 348024 SuperFlo | 1.5 HP, Single-speed | $1,099 |
| Pentair | 011773 WhisperFlo | 1.5 HP, Single Speed | $1,499 |
What is the Quietest Type of Pool Pump?
If you don’t like the list that we have provided, there still are many other quiet pool pumps that will likely suit your needs. If you are searching for a new and quieter pool pump, there are a few things that you should keep in mind: pool pump type, horsepower, and the size of the pipelines.
Pool Pump Type
There are three flavors of pool pumps. You have the single-speed, two-speed, and variable-speed.
Variable-speed
Ideally, this is the one that you will buy. It uses a permanent magnet motor; the other ones don’t. This motor is the same type of motor used in modern-day electric cars, and those cars are super stealthy. This type of motor causes a significantly smaller amount of friction. That means less wear and less noise.
Single-speed
You have a specific amount of horsepower. If the pool pump is set to “on,” the pool pump will run its motor at full strength. If it’s noisy, that is just the way it is.
Dual-speed
Both the single-speed and double-speed use louder motors than the variable-speed. However, the dual-speed can often be quieter than the single-speed since it doesn’t always need to run at full power.
More Horsepower = Larger Pool Pump Pipes = More Noise
This next bit of advice only applies if minimal noise is your top priority. Contrary to our next recommendation, there are scenarios where increased power and larger pool pump pipes are desirable.
When choosing your pool pump, you should try to buy a pool pump that provides just enough horsepower to cover your pool’s needs and nothing more. As the horsepower increases, it requires larger pipes to keep the PSI low. If the PSI is too high, it pushes debris straight through the filter and back into the pool. Those larger pipes, while necessary, make pool pumps very noisy.
Place Filter System Farther Away from the Pool
This doesn’t require much explanation. If you have ever had an annoying sibling or some noisy children, you know how much a little distance can improve the state of your eardrums. One simple solution is to take that pool pump and move it somewhere else. It will do wonders for your ears.
While this solution can work, it forces the pump to work harder. This is because it has an increased load of water and it has to deliver that load from a greater distance. The pool pump’s noise will likely sound quieter to you, but in reality, it will probably be even louder. It will also shorten the lifespan of your pool pump. Those are significant downsides, so keep them in mind.
One more thing, try not to go too much over 40 feet from the pool. It generally isn’t a good idea, but any issues will mostly be dependent upon the specifications of your pool pump and the pipes.
