Operation quiet tank complete!

[LowCel]

I've been doing everything I could think of to quieten my system but I just couldn't quite get it. It was so loud that I was having trouble sleeping at night. You could hear it everywhere in my 2,500 square foot house. I couldn't take it and my wife wasn't being overly understanding about it. This tank is in the dining room so it needs to be quiet enough to have a conversation.

My obstacles were the wet/dry, the pipes, a reeflo dart and a reeflo blackfin 3600 pump. I kept getting it a little less loud but just couldn't get it to where I wanted it.

I got up this morning and removed the blackfin and removed the plastic mount that came with it and replaced it with three pieces of foam board. That alone made a huge difference.

Once I finished that I decided it was way too nice to keep working inside so I jumped on the ninja 1400 and took a nice ride. After I started feeling guilty for not working I returned home and traded the bike for the truck and headed to Lowes to pick up some goodies.

Once I returned home the first thing I did was cut out a section of pvc between the wet/dry and the reeflo dart. I then installed a rubber coupling. I think it helped a little but not nearly as much as I had hoped.

Next was the big job. I decided to insulate the entire stand. It only took about an hour but I have to say it made a huge difference. I have been checking the pumps every half hour or since I finished the job and so far there are no heat problems.

Here is the left side of the stand.

Here is the right side of the stand.

Here is the complete stand.

The few hours of work I did today made a huge difference. You can barely hear the pumps or the sump now. There is just a little hum that can barely be heard and a little bit of water noise from the overflow. I am very happy!

 

[coralreefer]

The few hours of work I did today made a huge difference. You can barely hear the pumps or the sump now. There is just a little hum that can barely be heard and a little bit of water noise from the overflow. I am very happy!

Good deal.
Is your wife happy too?

 

[MattG]

You aren't going to sheet rock it too?

 

[LowCel]

My wife is very happy with how quiet it is, much more so than I am. I am a very light sleeper though.

No sheet rock, I thought it would look better with some masonry work.

I just did a little more work which helped out a little more. Still have a little noise that I would like to get rid of. One person recommended insulating under the bottom of the stand. In order to do that I would have to use expandable foam which would run my floor. I'm just not sure if I want to go quite that far with it.

 

[solareclisped]

glad to hear it worked

 

[LowCel]

did a little more work on it today. I added rubber couplings to the input and output of the reeflo blackfin. Yesterday I added a rubber coupling on the output of the dart and added four layers of foam board instead of the plywood and 2x4 I had been using as a pump stand. These helped out quite a bit more. My next job will probably be to take part of the input plumbing to the blackfin and enlarge the hole a little for it in the stand. It's already very quiet but there is still a slight humm. I am getting much closer to beating it though.

 

[solareclisped]

How exactly do the rubber couplers help?

 

[LowCel]

They absorb some of the vibration so they keep the pipes from producing noise both from the pipes vibrating and from keeping the pipes vibrating against things.

 

[solareclisped]

oh ok that makes sense.