An upright freezer usually arrives for one reason: there is no more room in the kitchen freezer. A holiday turkey, a half share of beef, a few weeks of batch cooking. Where it then goes decides how much the noise matters. In the garage, nobody hears it. In a laundry room off the kitchen, you hear it every evening. In a basement under a bedroom, you hear it through the floor more than through the air.
Our main guide to the quietest chest and upright freezers covers which brands publish a figure at all. Our guide to the quietest chest freezers covers the lift-lid kind. This one works only with uprights, from 4 cu ft compacts to 21 cu ft full-size models, groups every figure by the unit its maker printed, and then matches them to the room they will run in.
Our picks are listed above, with full specifications for each.
We read the US product pages, spec sheets and manuals of upright freezers from Summit, Midea, Hisense, Element and GE, and tried Frigidaire, Whirlpool, Danby, Insignia, Arctic King and Beko. Four brands print a per-model figure for an upright, in three different units.
Figures printed in plain dB:
- Summit UF22W, 21.0 cu ft: 32.4 dB
- Summit FS605, 5.04 cu ft: 32.8 dB
- Summit UF18W, 17.0 cu ft: 33.2 dB
- Summit ALFZ51, 4.0 cu ft: 40.1 dB
- Element EUF14CEBW, EUF17CEBW and EUF21CECS, 13.8 to 21.0 cu ft: 45 dB each
Figures printed in dBA:
- Midea MRU21F5BWW, 21.1 cu ft: 39 dBA
- Midea MRU21C7BST, 20 cu ft: 41 dBA
- Midea MRU17F5AWW, 17 cu ft: 42 dBA
- Midea MRU14F5AWW, 13.8 cu ft: 42 dBA
Figures printed in dB(A):
- Hisense CFU21N6AWE, 21.2 cu ft: 43 dB(A)
- Hisense CFU14N6AWE, 13.6 cu ft: 47 dB(A)
- Hisense HUF210N6AWD, 21.2 cu ft: 47 dB(A)
Not one of these makers states a distance, a load, a room temperature or a test standard. So "quietest" here means the lowest number inside one group, and nothing more. The widest gap is inside the plain dB group, where Summit's full-size figures sit about 12 dB under Element's. Both print the same unit, but neither says how it measured, so read that gap as two makers' claims rather than a result we can vouch for. Inside one maker's own range the comparison is fairer: Midea's 21 cu ft model at 39 dBA against its 14 cu ft model at 42 dBA, or Hisense's 43 dB(A) against its own 47 dB(A). For why figures from different brands rarely line up, see why you cannot compare dB ratings across brands.
Several brands publish nothing. GE says outright: "We do not rate the sound level of our refrigerators or freezers." Midea's two 3 cu ft compact uprights, the MRU03M2ABB and WHS-109FW1, have no noise row on their pages, although its full-size uprights do. Frigidaire's site returned an error, Whirlpool's and Danby's product pages refused our requests, and Insignia, Arctic King and Beko could not be reached, so we have no figure from any of them. We did not review Liebherr's US range in depth.
What the room does to the number
Roughly every 10 dB is a doubling of perceived loudness, so a 3 dB gap within one maker's range is small, and the roughly 7 dB that separates Summit's FS605 from its own ALFZ51 is something you would notice in a quiet kitchen. These figures matter most where the room is quietest.
Kitchen or laundry room. This is where the figure earns its place, because you are in the room with it. A compact upright here is usually a second freezer for overflow, and the FS605 is the one to look at: 32.8 dB, 22 inches wide, counter height. The catch is the room rating. Summit's manual asks for a well-ventilated area "with temperatures above 60°F (16°C) and below 90°F (32°C)", so it suits a heated laundry room, not an unheated porch.
Basement. In a basement the bigger issue is usually vibration through the floor, not the airborne figure, and our page on keeping a quiet basement covers where to put it and how the sound reaches the rooms above. A tall upright on a slab is stable, but check the height: the Summit UF22W is 76.75 inches and the Hisense CFU21N6AWE is 76.3 inches to the hinge, while the Midea MRU14F5AWW is 61.9 inches.
Garage. Here the noise figure matters least, because few people spend long in a garage. What matters is the temperature rating, covered below.
If the freezer has to sit under a counter, in an island or a home bar, the ALFZ51 is front breathing and built-in capable. For the fridge side of that job, see the quietest undercounter refrigerators.
Frost free or manual defrost, and what you will hear
Most full-size uprights are frost free, and that brings two sounds a chest freezer does not make: a fan and a defrost cycle.
GE explains the defrost sounds plainly. Sizzling, popping, crackling and hissing "occur normally during the automatic defrost cycle of your freezer. This cycle normally lasts between 30 and 40 minutes and can occur at various times of the day." Whirlpool's freezer help says a sizzling or hissing noise "could be caused by water dripping on to the defrost heater during the defrost cycle." Summit's ALFZ51 manual is the only one we found that gives a schedule: defrosting "takes place approximately every 14 hours", and "the defrost cycle lasts about 15 minutes".
The fan is the other one. Hisense's manual lists "Air movement noise from the small fan motor in the freezer compartment" among the normal sounds, along with compressor running noises, gurgling "similar to water boiling", "Popping noise during automatic defrosting" and a "Clicking noise before the compressor starts".
A manual defrost upright like the FS605 avoids the defrost heater and the popping that goes with it. Summit's FS605 manual lists only "refrigerant gurgling" as a normal noise. GE says manual defrost freezers should not make the defrost sounds "except for the normal expansion and contraction of the freezer liner". The price is the chore: ENERGY STAR says manual defrost models use about half the energy of automatic ones, but only if you defrost before frost builds past a quarter of an inch. On a 21 cu ft upright that is a lot of food to move, which is why nearly every full-size pick here is frost free and the manual defrost pick is a 5 cu ft compact.
Garage ready: read the range, and the mode
A holiday freezer often ends up in the garage, and "garage ready" means different things on different pages.
- Summit UF18W and UF22W: the manual says that as a freezer the unit "can be installed in a well-ventilated area inside a garage where the ambient temperature is between 0°F (-17.7°C) and 110°F (43.3°C)", and as a refrigerator "the ambient temperature must be above 38°F".
- Midea MRU14F5AWW, MRU17F5AWW and MRU21F5BWW: "External Temperature Range: 38°F to 110°F in fridge mode, 0°F to 110°F in freezer mode."
- Hisense CFU21N6AWE: garage ready in freezer mode, "Designed to perform in temperatures between 0°F - 110°F". The CFU14N6AWE manual adds that in fridge mode it needs 55°F to 110°F.
- GE: its 2018 and newer upright and chest freezers "are proven to perform at room temperatures ranging between 0 degrees Fahrenheit and 110 degrees Fahrenheit".
- Element: "Garage Ready Yes" on its upright sheets, with no ambient range printed.
- Summit FS605 and ALFZ51: no garage claim. They ask for 60°F to 90°F and 50°F to 100°F.
Every convertible above is rated for the cold only in freezer mode. If you planned to run it as a garage fridge for drinks over the holidays, a cold snap below 38°F, or 55°F for the Hisense, takes it outside its range.
Heat is the side that affects noise. Summit's manual says "Long operation of the appliance is normal during the summer/in warmer weather when the ambient temperature is high", and that "The compressor will not start if the ambient temperature is below 0°F or above 110°F." Hisense lists a hot room, a large load of warm food and frequent door opening as reasons the motor runs more. A freezer in a hot garage in August is louder in the way that counts: it runs more of the time. The holiday stock-up adds to that. Loading a lot of unfrozen food at once is the other cause Summit names, so freeze a big shop in batches if you can.
Door alarms and beeps
A door alarm is useful in a garage, where a door left ajar can cost a freezer full of food, and irritating in a kitchen. The makers differ more here than on noise.
Hisense lists a door alarm on the CFU21N6AWE sheet. Its CFU14N6AWE manual explains how that alarm behaves: "When the door has been opened for over 2 minutes, the door alarm will come on", the buzzer "will sound 3 times every 1 minute and will stop alarming automatically after 8 minutes", and holding the MODE button for 3 seconds clears the sound. Element's manual says its door alert starts if the door is open over 300 seconds, and that its high temperature alert buzzes for 10 seconds every 30 minutes. Summit offers a temperature alarm on its full-size uprights and the FS605 only as a factory-installed upgrade. On the ALFZ51 an alarm sounds if the temperature is out of range for 2 hours, and Summit's page says Sabbath mode "disables alarms, interior light, and displays for up to 96 hours". Midea's pages list no alarm.
Levelling and clearance
An upright is tall and narrow, so a small tilt shows. Summit's manual lists "There is a loud noise coming from the appliance" with the fix: "Check whether the floor is level, and whether the appliance is placed stably." Its FS605 manual goes further: make sure the cabinet "is level, not touching the wall or any other surface, and rests squarely on the floor at all four corners". Hisense asks for a level, hard surface, warns that its rollers "are not castors", and suggests tilting the top back by about 10mm so the door closes by itself.
Clearance is the other thing you control. Summit wants at least 4 inches behind the UF22W and 11 inches above it. The FS605 needs 4 inches at the back and the cabinet bottom ¾ to 1 inch above the floor. Hisense prints 4 inches each side and on top for the CFU21N6AWE, with about 2 to 2.76 inches at the back. A cabinet pushed against drywall passes compressor vibration into the wall, and one squeezed into a laundry alcove runs longer in the trapped heat.
What quiet costs
The lowest figures come with trade-offs. The quietest compact, the FS605, is manual defrost and indoor only. The quietest full-size upright in plain dB, the UF22W, is over six feet tall, and Summit publishes no price. Midea's 39 dBA model was out of stock, as was every Midea upright we checked. Frost free saves the chore but adds the fan and the defrost cycle. And a bigger cabinet holds the holiday food, but takes longer to pull down to temperature after a big load. GE says that placing more food in the freezer "can dampen the noise and diminish the compressor's run time", so a full upright is often quieter than a half-empty one.
How we chose
We started from the upright freezers in our catalog and re-read each maker's page and spec sheet. We then searched Summit's full upright and compact freezer ranges, Midea's compact uprights and Hisense's spec sheets for figures we did not have, and added the Summit UF22W, UF18W, FS605 and ALFZ51 and the Hisense CFU21N6AWE. We grouped figures by the unit each maker printed, ranked only inside a group, and matched picks to rooms using each maker's own temperature range, defrost type, alarm, levelling and clearance instructions. New to the units? Read dBA explained.
We did not measure any of these freezers ourselves. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted in the unit it printed, and none of the makers says how it measured. Summit and Hisense publish no prices, and every Midea upright showed out of stock on Midea's own pages when we checked, so confirm price and availability with a retailer before you buy.
