A snow blower is the one yard machine you cannot schedule around the neighbors. The snow falls overnight, the car has to get out before work, and the plow leaves a ridge at the end of the driveway at whatever hour it passes. That makes noise figures more useful here than for any other outdoor tool, and they turn out to be rarer. Of the ten brands we checked, only two print a figure with a stated basis for a snow blower sold in the US.
This guide ranks those figures like with like, explains what they mean for a tight street, and lists what everyone else publishes, which is mostly nothing. For the bigger picture of yard noise and the people next door, our explainer on keeping a quiet yard covers the operator figure and the guaranteed sound power in more depth.
Our picks are listed above, with full specifications for each.
Two kinds of number, kept apart
Snow blower makers who publish anything publish two quantities. The sound pressure at the operator's ear, written LpA, is what the person behind the handles hears. The sound power, written LwA, is the total noise the machine sends out in every direction, which is closer to what the house next door hears. EU law requires a guaranteed sound power on outdoor equipment under directive 2000/14/EC, a ceiling the maker commits to, and that is the figure most worth comparing for neighbors. Our sound power vs sound pressure explainer covers why the two can never be ranked against each other, and we never do.
We also keep figures apart by where they are printed. A figure in an operator's manual or declaration is one the maker stands behind. A figure on a product page alone is still the maker's own, but when it disagrees with the manual, the manual wins. Claims with no number, such as "quieter than gas", are listed separately and ranked against nothing.
Three snow blowers sold in the US have figures declared in a maker's manual. At the operator's ear, quietest first:
- EGO SNT2120AP, single-stage battery (EU manual for SNT2120E-AP): 80 dB(A), K 4
- EGO SNT2400, two-stage battery (EU manual for SNT2400E): 82.5 dB(A), K 4
- Husqvarna ST 124, two-stage gas (US manual): 86 dB(A), EN ISO 11201, uncertainty 1.5
By guaranteed sound power under 2000/14/EC: both EGOs at 98 dB(A), the ST 124 at 102.
EGO's K of 4 is a wide uncertainty, so the 2.5 decibel gap between its two machines at the ear is not one to buy on. The gap to the gas ST 124 is clearer, six decibels at the ear and four in sound power. Roughly every 10 decibels sounds twice as loud, so four decibels of sound power is a difference a neighbor would notice but not a dramatic one. Our decibel chart puts 80 to 86 dB(A) beside everyday sounds, and hearing protection is sensible for a long clearing session at any of these levels.
Husqvarna's product page figures
Husqvarna prints a "Sound and noise" table on every US snow blower page, with an operator figure and a guaranteed sound power. At the operator's ear, quietest first:
- ST 324: 79 dB(A)
- ST 330: 80 dB(A)
- ST 424: 81 dB(A)
- ST 224, ST 230, ST 327, ST 427, ST 430 and ST 430T: 85 dB(A)
By guaranteed sound power: ST 224, ST 324, ST 430 and ST 430T at 100 dB(A); ST 424 and ST 427 at 101; ST 330 at 103; ST 230 and ST 327 at 105.
These figures come with two warnings. First, Husqvarna's US manuals for the 200, 300 and 400 series print no operator figure and give the sound power only as a ceiling for the whole family, "Sound power level, guaranteed LWA dB(A) ≤ 105", so none of the per-model page figures is backed by a manual. Second, the ST 124 page lists 105 dB(A) at the ear and a guaranteed 98, while its manual declares 86 and 102. An operator figure higher than the sound power does not make physical sense, so we set the ST 124's page figures aside and rank it on its manual. The pattern on the pages is also odd: the 30 inch ST 330 lists five decibels less at the ear than the 24 inch ST 224, and the ear and sound power figures do not move together. Our Husqvarna decibels guide found the same kind of gaps between pages and manuals across the brand's mowers, blowers and saws.
Matching European models to US machines
EGO prints no noise figures on its US snow blower pages, but its European manuals declare all three quantities. We use them only where EGO's own numbering shows the same machine. The EU SNT2120E-AP is the US SNT2120AP with an E added, and the EU SNT2400E is the US SNT2400; the US kits, SNT2125AP and SNT2405, contain those machines with batteries. The specs line up: the SNT2400E manual gives a 61 cm width and 51 cm intake, which are the US page's 24 and 20 inches. The SNT2120E-AP manual gives a 330 mm intake, matching the US 13 inches, but a 520 mm clearing width, about 20.5 inches against the US page's 21, a small gap we flag rather than explain. EGO's other US snow blowers, including the newer SNT2416, SNT2425, SNT2807, SNT2124 and SNT2134, have no EU twin we could find, so they are not ranked. Our EGO decibels guide uses the same method for EGO's mowers, blowers and trimmers.
We did not extend this to other brands. The Ariens manuals with European noise declarations that we found cover 924 series model numbers, while Ariens' US Deluxe and Compact machines carry 920 and 921 series numbers, so nothing in Ariens' numbering ties the two together.
Single-stage or two-stage
A single-stage snow blower uses one auger, usually rubber paddles, to scoop snow and throw it out the chute in one motion. The paddles touch the pavement and help pull the machine along, which is what EGO means by auger-propelled. It is lighter, simpler and cheaper, but it needs a paved surface and copes poorly with deep or packed snow. A two-stage machine adds an impeller behind a metal auger, so it can chew through plow ridges and throw snow further, at the cost of weight and size.
On noise, EGO's figures show only a small difference: 80 dB(A) at the ear for the single-stage against 82.5 for the two-stage, and the same guaranteed 98. Every Husqvarna here is a gas two-stage, so there is no gas single-stage figure to compare. For a short paved driveway and typical storms, the single-stage battery machine is the quiet choice. For a long driveway, a slope or heavy plow ridges, the SNT2400 is the quietest declared two-stage.
Clearing width and battery runtime
Wider machines clear a driveway in fewer passes, which shortens the noise as well as the job. The Husqvarna page figures do not show wider machines as consistently louder: the 30 inch ST 330 lists 80 dB(A) at the ear and the 24 inch ST 224 85, while the 30 inch ST 230 ties the 27 inch ST 327 for the highest sound power of the range.
Battery makers rarely state runtime in minutes. EGO states coverage instead: up to a 16 car driveway with 8 inches of snow for the SNT2120AP and up to 18 cars for the SNT2400, each on two 7.5Ah batteries. Toro's 60V Power Clear e21 claims "Clear up to a 12-parked-car driveway on a single charge" with its 7.5Ah battery. RYOBI is the exception, with "Up to 40 minutes of runtime" for its 21 inch Whisper Series kit on two 7.5Ah batteries. Wet, heavy snow drains batteries faster than the makers' examples, so a second charged set is worth having for a long driveway.
Several makers describe noise without measuring it in public. RYOBI's 21 inch Whisper Series is "engineered to be 84% quieter than gas, and even quieter than other cordless snow blowers", with no decibel figure, distance or comparison model. EGO's US pages say its snow blowers work "without the noise, fuss and fumes". Greenworks' US snow blower pages say "Low Noise." Greenworks' Canadian site lists "Noise Level @ 0' (User)" as "73.5 dB" for its 60V 24 inch dual stage model, SNC408, without A-weighting or a standard, on a model we could not find on Greenworks' US site; we list it for completeness and rank it against nothing. Our leaf blower guide explains why an unconditioned dB figure cannot be set beside a declared one.
The brands that publish nothing
Toro's current US manuals for the Power Clear 721 and the 60V Power Clear e21 print no noise figure, although older Toro manuals for models we could not match to Toro's current US lineup did. Snow Joe's manuals for its 24V, 24V-X2, 24V-X4 and 96V snow blowers print none. An Ariens US Deluxe manual and Cub Cadet's US two-stage and three-stage manuals, older editions that were the ones we could find, print none. Honda's US spec sheets for the HSS724 and HSS928 list none, and Honda's US product site refused our requests, so we could not check its pages. We found no snow blower in STIHL's US range. None of these can be ranked, however quiet they may be.
Ordinances and early mornings
Many towns limit power equipment to daytime hours, and many of them carve out snow removal. Falcon Heights, Minnesota limits domestic power equipment to 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekends and holidays, and exempts snow removal equipment from that limit. Brainerd, Minnesota exempts outdoor power equipment used for snow removal from its 6:30 a.m. start on weekdays. Windham, New Hampshire bars snow blowers and other machinery "powered by an internal combustion engine" from 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and until 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, "except during and the 24-hour period immediately following a snowfall", and separately exempts residential snow blowing.
So in many places a 5:30 a.m. clearing is legal. It is still the hour when sound carries furthest and people are asleep, which is where the guaranteed sound power figure earns its place. If you clear before dawn, a battery machine with the lowest declared sound power, started at the garage rather than idling under a bedroom window, is the considerate choice. Check your own town's code, since rules vary widely and some cover battery machines differently from gas ones.
We did not measure any of these snow blowers. Every figure here is the maker's own, quoted from EGO's European manuals, Husqvarna's US manuals and product pages, and the other makers' US pages and manuals, all read on October 5, 2026, and ranked only against figures of the same kind from the same kind of document.
