How is rotary hammer noise measured?
Under EN 62841-2-6, the part of the European EN 62841 standard written for drills and hammers. It gives a figure at the operator's ear and a figure for the hammer's total sound power, each with an uncertainty. Makita, Bosch and DEWALT declare their hammers for Europe under it, and Hilti's manuals cite the same family.
LpA, sound pressure at the operator's position, tracks what the person on the hammer hears. LWA is sound power, the hammer's total emission. The K value with each is the uncertainty, 3 dB for every hammer in the main group.
Placing runs on LpA, with each hammer's LwA printed next to it. Hilti's 90 and 98 for the TE 4-22 share a test but measure different things, so they are never ranked against each other; the sound power vs sound pressure explainer makes the case in full.
Vibration is declared separately for hammer drilling into concrete and for chiselling, and most makers here print both. Noise gets one figure pair per tool. DEWALT labels its pair hammer drilling mode, while Makita, Bosch, Hilti and Milwaukee name no mode. That single pair is what gets ranked, with its source named: Makita cites EN62841-2-6, Bosch and DEWALT EN IEC 62841-2-6, Hilti's manuals the EN 62841 standards in their declaration of conformity, and Milwaukee's European pages no standard at all.
Which rotary hammer is the quietest?
Three SDS-plus models, each declaring 90 dB(A) for the operator: the Hilti TE 4-22, Bosch GBH18V-26DN and DEWALT DCH133B. SDS-max hammers are bought for bigger holes and demolition, so they are listed apart.
| Hammer | Group | LpA at the ear |
|---|
| Hilti TE 4-22 | SDS-plus, main group | 90 |
| Bosch GBH18V-26DN | SDS-plus, main group | 90 |
| DEWALT DCH133B | SDS-plus, main group | 90 |
| Makita XRH01Z | SDS-plus, main group | 91 |
| Bosch GBH18V-26K25 | SDS-plus, main group | 91 |
| Makita HR2641 | SDS-plus, main group | 93 |
| DEWALT DCH263B | SDS-plus, main group | 93 |
| Milwaukee 2613-20 | SDS-plus, main group | 93.5 |
| Hilti TE 6-22 | SDS-plus, main group | 94 |
| Makita GRH01Z | SDS-plus, main group | 95 |
| Hilti TE 2-22 | SDS-plus, main group | 95 |
| Milwaukee 2912-20 | SDS-plus, main group | 95.6 |
| Makita XRH07PTUN | SDS-max, main group | 94 |
| Makita HR4013C | SDS-max, main group | 96 |
| DEWALT DCH273B | EN 60745, kept apart | 86 |
| DEWALT DCH172B | EN 60745, kept apart, K of 4 | 87 |
Sound power mostly follows the same order, with one exception. The three hammers at 90 all declare 98, the lowest in the main group, but Milwaukee's 2613-20 sits mid table at the ear and declares 104.5 sound power, the highest in the group. If other people share the room, read that column too.
Hilti alone prints figures on its US pages
For all three Nuron hammers here, hilti.com and the manuals agree. Hilti's UK pages do not: they give the TE 2-22 92 at the ear against 95 in the manual, and the TE 6-22 91 against 94. The manuals, which the US pages match, are the source quoted.
Hilti also prices on hilti.com: $319 for the TE 2-22, $379 for the TE 4-22 and $471 for the TE 6-22, each as a tool body.
Not one US product page we opened for the Makita, Milwaukee, Bosch or DEWALT hammers prints a noise figure, and none shows a maker price either. Every other hammer figure here comes from European paperwork, and every listing shows how its US tool was paired with the European twin.
The document and the standard behind a figure decide it, and two maker documents show why standards never mix here.
Makita's US manual for the HR2811F gives the hammer 90 dB(A) of operator pressure and 101 of sound power under EN60745. Its current European manual declares 96 and 104 for the same model under EN62841-2-6.
DEWALT's US manual for the DCH263 prints 85.7 at the ear in hammer drilling mode and 89.2 in chisel mode, naming no standard, while its UK manual declares 93 under EN 62841. The EN 62841 figure is the one ranked for the DCH263, and the HR2811F was left out.
A decibel or two is inside the uncertainty
Every main group figure carries a K of 3, so hammers a decibel apart may sound the same in use. Read the three at 90 and the two at 91 as one quiet cluster rather than a ranked top five.
Wider gaps do count. Hilti's TE 2-22 declares five decibels more at the ear than its TE 4-22, and a dust extractor adds two to four decibels on some Makitas.
Each declaration records one standardised test, a long way from a full day of drilling. Bit size, the concrete, how hard you lean on the tool and whether you are chiselling all change what you hear, so use the figures to compare hammers rather than to predict your exposure.
For occasional masonry, a hammer drill is the other route, and our cordless drill guide keeps hammer drill figures in their own group beside the drills. The attached dust modules in the Makita figures above are made for those hammers; for a freestanding extractor to handle the rest of the job, our dust extractor guide ranks those separately, by their own standard.
Hammers left out, and why
Metabo's US site returned server errors every time we tried it, so no Metabo declaration could be tied to a US model or price. Makita's HR2631F and XRH12Z are marked discontinued on makitatools.com.
Several Milwaukee and Bosch hammers failed the match. The M12 FUEL 2416-20 lists 0 to 900 rpm and 6,200 blows per minute, which do not fit the European M12 FHAC16, the only M12 FUEL hammer page we found there. The 2915-20 matches the European M18 ONEFHP on speed and blows, but the US page calls it a 1-1/8 inch hammer where the European page gives 32 mm in concrete, and the 2916-20 lists 810 rpm and 4,650 blows against 800 and 4,600 for the nearest European page. Bosch's corded GBH2-26 shares a part number stem with the European GBH 2-26, yet its US page lists 5,100 blows per minute against 4,000 in the European manual.
Whatever these hammers sound like, quiet or loud, no US document from their makers says.
