Every appliance in a kitchen makes noise, and most of it is the machine working. The problem is that nobody tells you which sounds are normal, so a fridge that has always clicked suddenly seems alarming the week you start paying attention to it.
There is a reasonably reliable way to sort them. Noises fall into two families: sounds made by things moving fluid or switching on and off, which are almost always design; and sounds made by metal contacting metal, which almost always mean wear.
The Short Answer
Usually normal — fluid, thermal or electrical:
- Humming — a compressor or motor running. Constant pitch is fine.
- Clicking — a relay, thermostat or igniter switching. Regular and brief.
- Gurgling and trickling — refrigerant moving, or water draining.
- Ticking on a hob — power being pulsed on and off at low settings.
- Popping and creaking — plastic expanding and contracting with temperature.
Usually a fault — mechanical contact:
- Grinding — something solid where it shouldn't be, or a bearing breaking up.
- Squealing — a belt or a seized pulley.
- Rumbling that grows over months — drum bearings.
- Knocking or banging — an unbalanced load, or something loose.
- Scraping — a rotating part touching a fixed one.
Stop using it immediately if you hear: a loud electrical buzz that wasn't there before, any noise accompanied by a burning smell, or a bang followed by the appliance tripping the electrics.
The most useful thing you can do: record it on your phone. Noises are extremely hard to describe and trivially easy to play to an engineer.
What Actually Matters
Three questions sort most of it.
Is it new? An appliance that has always made a particular sound is very unlikely to have developed a fault that produces the same sound. This is why a recording made when a machine is new is worth having, and why moving into a house with unfamiliar appliances produces so much unnecessary worry.
Is it getting worse? The single most reliable indicator. Design noises stay constant. Wear noises escalate, usually over weeks or months. A rumble that was faint in May and obvious in September is a fault even if you cannot identify it.
When in the cycle does it happen? Timing localises the cause better than the sound itself. A noise only on spin is a bearing or a balance problem. A noise only on fill is a valve. A noise only when the compressor starts is electrical. A noise throughout is a motor or fan.
Detailed Analysis
Noises that are always design
Fridge and freezer clicking. Compressors switch on and off through a start relay, and that relay clicks. A fridge that clicks every few minutes and continues cooling is fine. A fridge that clicks repeatedly and is not getting cold is a different matter entirely, and it's a specific fault — a fridge clicking and not cooling usually means the start relay has failed rather than that it's operating.
Gurgling from a fridge. Refrigerant changing state as it moves through the circuit. It's most noticeable shortly after the compressor stops, and it's entirely normal.
Induction hob ticking. Induction hobs at low settings don't reduce power continuously; they pulse full power on and off. The relay doing that switching is audible. Same principle on a ceramic hob, where the element visibly glows and fades.
Dishwasher pauses and clunks. A dishwasher alternates between the upper and lower spray arms, and a valve diverts the flow. The change is audible and the cycle sounds different at different stages.
Oven cooling fan after switch-off. Most built-in ovens run a cooling fan for some minutes after the oven is turned off, to protect the control electronics. It stops on its own.
Noises that mean wear
A rumble on spin, growing over months. This is drum bearings, and it's the most consequential noise on this list because the repair is often uneconomic. It starts as a faint aeroplane-like sound at high spin and becomes impossible to ignore. Covered in detail in why a washing machine goes loud on spin, along with the drum play test that confirms it.
Squealing. On a tumble dryer, a belt or a jockey pulley. On a washing machine, a belt. Both are inexpensive parts and both get worse until something snaps, at which point the drum stops turning entirely. A dryer that squeals and then stops after a few minutes may be heading that way.
Grinding. Something solid in a pump. Glass fragments, cherry stones, coins and hairgrips all end up in the sump of a washing machine or dishwasher, and the impeller finds them. Catching it early usually means recovering the object; leaving it means a damaged pump.
Knocking or banging on spin. Usually an unbalanced load, which the machine will normally correct by redistributing. If it happens on every load regardless of what's in it, the suspension or the counterweight fixings are the likely cause.
Scraping. A fan blade touching its housing, or a drum touching the casing. Always investigate this one — it means something has moved out of position.
The ones that depend on when they happen
A few sounds are normal in one context and a fault in another, which is why timing matters so much.
| Sound | Normal when | Fault when |
|---|---|---|
| Humming | Constant pitch, appliance working | Pitch rises and falls, or it never stops |
| Clicking | Every few minutes, cooling continues | Rapid repeated clicking, no cooling |
| Water noise | During fill or drain | When the machine should be idle |
| Vibration | Briefly at peak spin | Throughout the cycle, or machine moves |
| Fan noise | While heating or cooling | Rattling, or continuing indefinitely |
The "when it should be idle" row is worth highlighting. Water running when nothing is switched on is either a valve that isn't closing or a siphoning problem, and both waste water continuously.
Why appliances get louder with age
Three things degrade, and all of them do so gradually enough that nobody notices the change.
Bearings lose their lubricant and their surfaces pit. This is the rumble.
Rubber mounts and dampers perish and harden. They exist to absorb vibration, and as they stiffen more of it reaches the casing and the floor. A machine that has become noisier without any single identifiable sound is usually this.
Fixings loosen. Years of vibration back off screws and bolts. Occasionally the fix for a newly noisy appliance is genuinely just tightening things.
The gradual nature is the problem. People adapt to a noise that increases by a few percent a month and then describe a machine as having "suddenly" become loud, when it has been getting louder for two years.
Recording it, which helps more than describing it
Worth doing before you call anyone.
Record thirty seconds on a phone, held close to the appliance, and note where in the cycle it happened. An engineer can often identify a fault from a recording before arriving, which means they bring the right part.
It also protects you against the appliance behaving perfectly during the visit, which happens with intermittent faults more often than anyone would like.
And if you've just bought or moved into a house, recording each appliance while it's known to be working gives you a baseline. It costs five minutes and it settles every future "has it always done that?" question.
Real-World Considerations
Installation causes a surprising share of noise complaints. A machine that isn't level will vibrate and walk; one pressed against a wall or a unit will transmit resonance into the cabinetry; one on a suspended timber floor will be amplified by the floor itself. All three are fixable without touching the appliance.
Flats and terraces make everything worse, because structure-borne noise travels through a building far better than airborne noise does. A machine that's unremarkable in a detached house can be a genuine problem through a party wall.
Heat pump dryers deserve a mention because they sound different from what people expect. They run a compressor as well as a drum, so there's a background hum throughout that a conventional dryer doesn't have — and they run for much longer, so you hear it for three hours rather than one. That combination generates a lot of unnecessary concern, discussed in why heat pump dryers take so long.
Water noises are worth treating separately from mechanical ones, because the consequence of ignoring them is different. A machine that fills or drains when it shouldn't is losing water continuously, and the first sign is often a bill rather than a sound. Water appearing under a washing machine can have the same root cause.
And there's a category worth naming: noises that have a smell attached. Any sound accompanied by burning, hot plastic, or an electrical odour is not a diagnostic puzzle. Switch the appliance off at the wall and don't use it until someone has looked at it.
Common Mistakes Buyers Make
- Assuming any new noise is serious. Most are design, and the question is whether it's new and whether it's escalating.
- Assuming a familiar noise is fine. A rumble that has grown slowly over two years is a fault you've adapted to.
- Trying to describe a noise over the phone. Record it. Thirty seconds saves a wasted visit.
- Ignoring a squeal. Belts and pulleys are cheap until the belt snaps and the drum stops.
- Continuing to use a grinding machine. A solid object in a pump is recoverable early and destroys the impeller if left.
- Blaming the appliance for an installation problem. Levelling, clearance and floor type cause a large share of noise complaints.
- Running anything that makes a noise plus a burning smell. Switch it off at the wall.
- Not recording a baseline on new appliances. Five minutes that answers every future question about whether a sound is new.
Alternatives Worth Considering
Where the noise is genuine but the appliance is otherwise sound, a repair is often cheap. Belts, pulleys, mounts and fixings are all inexpensive, and the calculation is very different from the one for bearings or a compressor — covered in when an appliance isn't worth repairing.
Where the noise is transmitted rather than generated, decoupling the machine from the floor helps more than anything done to the appliance. Proper levelling first, then an anti-vibration mat or a spreader board if the floor is timber.
If the problem is a machine that's simply loud by design in an open-plan space, noise figures are published and the scale is logarithmic — a 42dB dishwasher is meaningfully quieter than a 46dB one rather than marginally so. Worth attending to at purchase rather than trying to fix afterwards.
And for intermittent faults that never happen when an engineer is present, a recording plus a written note of exactly when in the cycle it occurs is the most useful thing you can hand over. It turns a guess into a diagnosis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What noises are normal for a fridge?
Humming while the compressor runs, clicking as it starts and stops, and gurgling as refrigerant moves. All three are design.
What do worn bearings sound like?
A low rumble on spin, worst at high speeds, which grows gradually over months. It's often compared to an aeroplane taking off.
Why does my appliance squeal?
Almost always a drive belt or a seized idler pulley. Both are cheap parts and both get worse until the belt fails.
Should I stop using a noisy appliance?
Stop immediately for any noise with a burning smell, a new electrical buzz, or one followed by tripping. Grinding should also come out of service quickly.
Why has my machine got louder over the years?
Bearings wear, rubber mounts perish and fixings loosen. All three happen gradually, which is why the change goes unnoticed.
How do I explain a noise to an engineer?
Record it on a phone and note where in the cycle it happens. That's far more useful than any description.
Final Thoughts
The useful filter is mechanical contact. Fluid moving, relays switching and plastic expanding are all normal. Metal touching metal is not, and neither is anything that gets steadily worse.
Beyond that, timing tells you more than the sound does. A noise confined to one part of the cycle localises the fault; a noise throughout points at a motor or a fan; a noise when the appliance should be idle points at a valve.
And record it. It's the single most useful thing you can do, it takes thirty seconds, and it is considerably more informative than any attempt to write down what a failing bearing sounds like.
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