Do ceiling fan makers publish decibel ratings?
No, almost no ceiling fan maker does, and there is no standard to hold them to. ENERGY STAR certifies ceiling fans for efficiency and airflow, and its specification never mentions noise. The federal efficiency rules do not either.
Nobody in this category publishes a sone rating, the unit used for bathroom fans. Our bathroom exhaust fan guide explains how those sone ratings work.
Two makers publish a figure for a specific fan.
Big Ass Fans lists under 35 dBA at maximum speed for the Haiku and the Haiku L. It names the speed, and it chose the loudest one. It gives no measuring distance, and a footnote says sound in a real room may vary with reflective surfaces.
Dreo lists lower than 35dB for its 44-inch and 52-inch smart fans. It gives no speed, no distance and no A-weighting.
The two numbers look the same and are not. One is a dBA figure at full speed. The other is a plain dB figure at a speed we are not told. We rank the Big Ass Fans figure well above Dreo's for that reason.
Everyone else publishes nothing for a specific model. Hunter, Casablanca, Minka-Aire, Modern Forms, Visual Comfort, Craftmade and Honeywell give no figure on the pages, spec sheets and manuals we read.
The attic is no better documented: our guide to the quietest attic fans checked thirteen brands and found ten fans with a maker noise figure, in three units that cannot be ranked against each other.
Is Hunter's WhisperWind a noise rating?
No, WhisperWind is a motor name, not a noise rating, and Hunter builds its quiet claims around it, so its wording deserves a close look.
It appears on both AC and DC motors. Hunter describes the design as using sealed bearings to reduce internal noise, in an insulated housing that absorbs vibration.
Hunter also says its fans undergo extensive sound testing, with sound output measured at multiple speeds. It does not publish the results for any model.
What it offers is a general statement: most Hunter quiet ceiling fans operate between 30 and 40 decibels on low to medium speeds. That sentence names no model and no distance, so it cannot be attached to the fan you are looking at.
None of this makes Hunter fans loud. It means you are buying on reputation and design, not on a number.
What does a DC motor change in a ceiling fan?
Hunter says DC motors give quieter operation, lower energy use and more speed options, but no maker publishes a decibel comparison, so we will not claim one.
Two things are on the spec sheets, though. The DC fans in this guide offer six or more speeds, where the AC fans offer three or four. More speeds make it easier to find a slow one, and every fan is quieter when it turns slowly.
The DC fans are also far more efficient. Where makers publish a figure, the DC fans here run from 185 to 314 CFM per watt, and the AC fans from 68 to 81. Those figures are not all measured the same way, so treat that as a pattern, not a ranking.
DC fans in this guide also tend to reverse from the remote. That matters more than it sounds. On the Hunter Dempsey, the reversing switch is inside the light fixture, behind the glass.
Why is my ceiling fan humming or clicking?
Often the cause is not the fan but a wall dimmer, a loose blade screw or an unsteady ceiling box. The most useful material we found was in the manuals, under troubleshooting. Most of it costs nothing to fix.
Wall dimmers cause hum
Craftmade's guide says a full range dimmer used to control fan speed will cause a loud humming noise. Honeywell's manual says the same. Hunter explains why: capacitor controls change speed without a hum, and solid state variable controls often create one.
Minka-Aire goes further and voids the warranty if you use a dimmer or another maker's wall control. A fan with its own remote should be wired to a plain on/off switch.
The ceiling box matters
Honeywell's manual says the stability of the outlet box is essential in minimizing wobble and noise. ENERGY STAR says to use a UL-listed metal box marked "For Use With Ceiling Fans".
Clicking is usually a loose screw
Hunter says clicking is most often caused by a loose blade or loose blade holder screws.
Wobble is usually blade height
Visual Comfort's guide says most wobble comes from unequal blade levels, and tells you to measure each blade tip to the ceiling, keeping them within an eighth of an inch. After that, use a balancing kit. Honeywell includes one.
New fans settle
Minka-Aire asks owners to allow a 24-hour break-in period, and says most new-fan noises go away in that time.
Light dimmers can buzz
Hunter says light dimmer switches often create an electrical hum, and suggests dimming from the fan's own control system.
Which ceiling fans are quiet enough for light sleepers?
No ceiling fan maker prints a noise figure for the slowest speeds a fan spends the night on over a bed, which is what a light sleeper hears.
The spec sheets do say how slowly each fan turns and what it draws on low. The 52-inch Haiku L turns as slowly as 35 RPM, the slowest published minimum among these fans. Visual Comfort lists the Maverick's low speed at 2.43 W and 51 RPM, and Minka-Aire lists the AC Light Wave at 10.16 W and 55 RPM on low.
ENERGY STAR's certified fan data puts the Hunter Erling at 1.7 W on low and the Modern Forms Wynd at 4.8 W, and Big Ass Fans says the Haiku draws as little as 2.4 W at low speed. These are speed and power figures from different documents, so we read no loudness ranking into them.
Next, the remote, because a fan that changes speed also changes its sound. Big Ass Fans' installation guide says the Haiku L's Sleep button "automatically adjusts your fan speed overnight", without saying how; its timer, up to eight hours, holds one speed instead.
The Haiku's Auto button uses motion sensing to change the speed as the room changes, and we would leave it off at night. Dreo gives the 712S timer settings of 1, 4 and 8 hours. The Erling's manual lists no timer or sleep mode, so it stays at whatever speed you pick.
Size and height come last. Big Ass Fans sizes the Haiku L for rooms up to 100 square feet at 44 inches, 225 at 52 inches and 400 at 60 inches, so the 52-inch suits most bedrooms.
Hunter wants 7 feet between the floor and the bottom edge of the Erling's blades, and 30 inches between the blade tips and the nearest wall. Under a low ceiling, the Haiku's low profile mount, listed for flat ceilings of 8 to 10 feet, keeps the blades higher.
Big Ass Fans' 60-inch i6, which is not ranked above, carries the same under 35 dBA at max speed on its spec sheet and offers a flush mount at that size, for a large bedroom with an 8-foot ceiling. It weighs 34 lb, and Big Ass Fans asks for an outlet box marked acceptable for fan support of 70 lb.
How much should a quiet ceiling fan cost?
Around $250 to $350 is where most people should shop, though the picks here run from under $200 to above $1,500.
Under $200, the Dreo 513S gives you a light, a remote and the only published figure at this price, however loosely it is stated.
The Honeywell Carnegie sits at the bottom of the $250 to $350 range with three speeds. The Hunter Erling sits at the top with a DC motor, six speeds and reverse on the remote, and that difference is worth paying for above a bed.
If you cannot install a ceiling fan at all, the sleeping section of our tower fan guide covers the fans that stand on the floor.
Around $850 to $950 buys the Haiku L, with its published figure, or the Visual Comfort Maverick, with the most airflow and a damp rating.
Above $1,500, the Haiku adds sensors and airflow, and then charges extra for the light.
Where do ceiling fan buyers go wrong on noise?
Five stand out: reading ENERGY STAR or a motor name as a noise rating, keeping the old wall dimmer, trusting decibel figures on retailer listings and buying too few speeds.
Assuming ENERGY STAR means quiet
It means efficient. The specification has no noise requirement.
Treating a motor brand name as a rating
WhisperWind and Eco Whisper are names. No figure stands behind them.
Keeping the old wall dimmer
It is the most common cause of hum that the manuals name.
Hunter, Minka-Aire, Casablanca, Craftmade and Honeywell publish no figure for any model here, so a number on a listing did not come from the maker.
Buying too few speeds
A three-speed fan gives you three chances to find a quiet setting. A six-speed fan gives you six.
Big Ass Fans' under 35 dBA at maximum speed and Dreo's lower than 35dB at no stated speed show how two matching numbers can describe different things, which is the heart of the trouble with comparing decibel ratings across brands.
That leaves the Haiku and Haiku L's figure as the only one here to set beside the bedroom targets in how quiet is quiet enough, since Hunter's 30 to 40 decibels on low to medium names no model.
If a fan that ran quietly for years now clicks or wobbles, look first at the loose blade screws Hunter names and the uneven blade heights Visual Comfort describes, then at why your appliance got louder for causes beyond the blades.
