People search for Milwaukee decibels because they are choosing a blower, a trimmer or a saw and want to know what the street will hear. For blowers, Milwaukee answers clearly. Its operator's manuals print a "50' Bystander Sound Pressure Level" measured to ANSI B175.2, and its product pages repeat the number, often with the standard beside it. For everything else in its outdoor range, the US pages and manuals we read print no noise row at all. This page gathers every current US Milwaukee outdoor tool with a published figure, says exactly what each number is, and ranks like with like.
Every figure here is Milwaukee's own, read on October 5, 2026 from milwaukeetool.com and the operator's manuals it links. How Milwaukee compares with other brands is a separate question. Our guide to the quietest leaf blowers ranks every brand on the 50 foot figure, and its sibling guides do the same for each tool type.
Our picks are listed above, with full specifications for each.
What Milwaukee prints, and where
Milwaukee uses one kind of noise figure in the US: the sound level a bystander would measure 15 m, about 50 feet, from a running blower, under the ANSI B175.2 standard. It is the figure city blower rules use, often with a 65 dB(A) limit, and it is roughly what the house next door hears.
It appears in three places. The manuals for the 3017-20, 3009-20 and 2824-20 list it in the specifications as "50' Bystander Sound Pressure Level", with dB(A) as the unit, and repeat it among the safety symbols beside the words "per ANSI B175.2". The product pages carry a spec row called "Decibel Rating" that shows the same number written as plain dB, such as "54 dB" for the 3017-20. And the feature text and FAQs restate it, sometimes naming the standard: "operates at just 54 dB(A) per ANSI B175.2 standards" for the 3017-20 and "a noise rating of 64 decibels according to ANSI B175.2 standards" for the MX FUEL backpack.
What Milwaukee does not print in the US is a figure at the operator's ear or a sound power level. Those are the numbers EU rules require, and Milwaukee declares them on its European site, but for European models with their own names. Our sound power vs sound pressure explainer covers why the three kinds of figure cannot be set against each other. This page never does: ANSI 50 foot figures are ranked only against ANSI 50 foot figures, and numbers without a stated basis are listed separately.
Every Milwaukee blower with a 50 ft ANSI rating
Quietest first, all measured to ANSI B175.2 at 50 feet:
- M18 FUEL Blower 3017-20, handheld, one M18 battery: 54 dB(A)
- QUIK-LOK Blower Attachment 49-16-2793, on the M18 FUEL power head 3016-20: 59 dB(A)
- M18 FUEL Dual Battery Backpack Blower 3009-20: 62 dB(A)
- M18 FUEL Dual Battery Blower 2824-20, handheld, two M18 batteries: 64 dB(A)
- MX FUEL Backpack Blower MXF600, one MX FUEL battery: 64 dB(A)
Kits carry the same figure as the blower inside them. The 3017-21HD kit and the 3031-21 string trimmer and blower combo kit both include the 3017-20, which the combo kit page describes as having "low noise levels of 54dB(A)". The 3009-24HD kit is the 3009-20 with four HD12.0 batteries and two chargers, and the MXF600-2HD is the kit version of the MXF600.
The figures for the 3017-20, 3009-20 and 2824-20 come from both the manual and the product page. The figures for the QUIK-LOK attachment and the MXF600 come from the product pages only; the documents linked from those pages that we opened print no sound data. Our guides to handheld battery blowers and backpack blowers set these Milwaukee figures beside other brands on the same 50 foot basis.
Three more current blowers carry a number that Milwaukee does not tie to a distance or a standard, so we list them apart and do not rank them against the ANSI figures above:
- M18 Brushless Blower 3044-20: "Sound level of 62dB(A)", 450 CFM, 4.4 lb. Its page compares it with the M18 FUEL blower, which it says has "substantially lower noise at 54 dba", which suggests the same basis, but the page never names one, and we found no manual for it.
- M12 Compact Spot Blower 0852-20: "Decibel Rating" 78 dB, a 175 CFM jobsite blower. Its manual prints no sound figure.
- M18 Brushless Precision Blower 0887-20: "Decibel Rating" 90.5 dB, a 39 CFM blower built for 570 MPH air speed rather than leaves.
The M18 Compact Blower 0884-20 shows a "Decibel Rating" of 0 dB, which is a blank field rather than a figure. An older M18 FUEL blower page, the 2724-20, is still live with a "Sound Pressure" row of 62dB, but its manual prints no noise figure and the page gives no distance. Milwaukee's data list the 2728 blower as discontinued, so we leave it out.
Milwaukee trimmers, edgers, hedge trimmers, saws and mowers
Here Milwaukee's US answer is silence. We opened the US operator's manuals for the 2727 chainsaw, the 2826 top handle chainsaw, the 2827 dual battery chainsaw, the 3004 and 2527 HATCHET pruning saws, the 3013 telescoping pole saw and the QUIK-LOK pole saw attachment, the 3006, 2828 and 3015 trimmers and the QUIK-LOK trimmer attachment, the 2533, 2726, 3001, 3033, 3034 and 3043 hedge trimmers, and the 3016 power head. None prints a noise figure. The saw manuals mention ANSI B175.1, but only to certify low kickback chain, not noise. None of the product pages for these tools, or for the 3046 trimmer, the 3012 and 3035 pole hedge trimmers, the 3014 mulching vacuum or the 2823 mower, carries a "Decibel Rating" row.
Two pages do show a number, inside comparison charts against gas tools. The 3006-20 dual battery trimmer page describes "87.7 dB noise level" beside a "leading 36cc gas competitor", and the 3011-20 edger page says it "produces lower noise (78 dB(A) vs. 97 dB(A))" against a "leading 31cc gas competitor". Neither names a distance or standard, so neither can be compared with anything outside its own chart. They are Milwaukee's claims, and we report them as such.
Our category guides note the same gap for string trimmers, chainsaws, hedge trimmers and pole saws, where Milwaukee US models cannot be ranked.
Milwaukee's European site declares operator and sound power figures for many outdoor tools, because EU rules require them. But Milwaukee sells those tools in Europe under its own European names, such as M18 F2BPB for a dual battery backpack blower, M18 FOPH2 for a QUIK-LOK power head and M18 F2LM53 for a dual battery mower, and the European pages we opened cite no US catalog number. Specifications can look alike while motors, settings or decks differ, so we use a European figure only when the maker ties the two models by its own numbering. Milwaukee does not, so this page uses none. Our battery lawn mower guide discusses the M18 F2LM53 declaration as a probable twin of the US 2823-20 mower, with that caveat stated.
What moves the numbers inside Milwaukee's range
- Air and force. The quietest rated blower, the 3017-20, moves 500 CFM at 12.2 N. The two loudest at 64 dB(A) are the strongest: the 2824-20 at 600 CFM and 17.7 N, and the MXF600 at 800 CFM and 30 N.
- Design for the same air. The QUIK-LOK attachment matches the 3017-20 at 500 CFM and 120 MPH but lists 59 dB(A) against 54, so a dedicated blower is the quieter way to get that airflow.
- Backpack or handheld. The 3009 backpack lists 62 dB(A) with 650 CFM, two decibels under the 2824-20 handheld at 600 CFM, so the bigger tool is not always the louder one.
- Mode and throttle. Milwaukee publishes one figure per blower and does not say which mode or throttle it was measured at. It does publish run times by mode and throttle, and running below full power is the plain way to cut noise in practice.
Milwaukee's quiet claims, in its own words
Milwaukee says the 3017-20 is "Up To 40% Quieter than the competition" and that its low noise is "reducing disturbance to bystanders". It says the 3009 backpack delivers "a higher blowing force than up to 60cc gas while maintaining a noise level of 62dB(A)", and compares it with a gas blower at "62 dB(A) vs. 74 dB(A)". It lists "Low Noise" among the reasons to choose the 2824-20, 3009 and MXF600 over gas. Milwaukee does not name the competitors in these claims, so we cannot check them, and we do not repeat them as findings.
Roughly every 10 decibels sounds twice as loud, so at 50 feet the 3017-20 at 54 dB(A) sounds about half as loud as the 2824-20 or MXF600 at 64. Our decibel chart places these figures among everyday sounds.
We did not measure any of these tools. Every figure on this page is Milwaukee's own, quoted from its US product pages and operator's manuals as read on October 5, 2026, with the condition each describes, and ranked only against figures of the same kind within the same tool type.
