You could try cork. But you'd have to make sure that the floors were the same height and that you could still pull your refrigerator out to clean or vacuum the coils if they are in the back.

Personally I don't think using a different floor will make all that much difference. There's just not that much flooring underneath the frig. And if the frig is noisy you will still hear it. I would use area rugs, runners and window treatments to help absorb the sound.

I have 2 36" wide Sub Zeros in my kitchen on ceramic tile. My kitchen is fairly large - 30 X 20 and my refrigerators are not noisy. I can't speak for the newer models because I've had these for many years.

Cork will be great! It absorbs noise. It is like the best foams in terms of noise abatement, and it is strong enough to be a floor material. It's perfect.

If the floor levels aren't exact, it won't work against you when the fridge is in its space. Pulling it out would mean rolling it fast enough to be able to count on a bit of momentum to help when it comes to the bump, or alternatively rolling it very slowly at the bump and perhaps twisting it (while upright) so as to get one roller foot out first before the next one, one at a time. Not that big a deal.

No matter how expensive or how cheap your fridge will be, a cork pad or floor will be great.

I sort of have to chuckle--we have cork in our kitchen and did not put cork under the fridge--didn't want the fridge to sink into it! We put 1/2" plywood painted to match the fridge under there. It's the same height as the cork. We did the same with our range too.

hmmmm ... two votes for cork ... one vote against cork ...

beekeeperswife ... did you use plywood in a effort to absorb the sound?

we were at the appliance store today & the guy said the amana is very quiet & pointed out that it was sitting on tile in their showroom .. but I always am suspicious of what a salesman tells me ... however, it sure did sound quiet .. (I'm such a pushover!)

thank you .....

A fridge weighs what... 200 lbs? 250? About the same as a stout person sitting in a chair. Couldn't you put some of those felt chair leg slide things (the thick ones that are about 1/4" or so) on the feet of your fridge and let them act as shock absorbers? Or even discrete pieces of mousepad? (Mousepad makes an awesome shock absorber for interior applications). If they stand up to the weight of people sitting on them, I'm guessing they could stand up to the weight of a fridge (purely a guess though!)

I used to spend a fair bit of time in Florida on business travel, and the suite I would always stay in had a fridge on tile. I only heard it when it was running. :) But it was probably a cheaper fridge with more inherent shakes and rattles. I mentioned it once to my colleagues who live in Florida (and have most areas of their house tiled) and two of them had put doormats under their fridges to stop the rattles on their tile floor. Out of everyone there who probably had tile floors in the kitchen, 2 isn't bad.

Our fridge is sitting on 1/2 inch plywood. You can barely hear it, but i don't know if I would attribute that to the plywood.

A refrigerator puts all of its weight onto four rather small surfaces. Also, adjusting the height often requires some part to rotate against the floor. Cork is soft, but can work if the refrigerator support points rest on a rigid pad of some sort that will spread the weight onto a wider zone; steel, aluminum, Haldex (quarter-inch hardwood plywood) are possible candidates.

kas

We did not put it on plywood for sound reasons. Just didn't want the 650# fridge sinking into the cork. The fridge is very quiet anyway, only hear the ice cubes falling sometimes inside.