If there is any chance it will be too loud, I would open the wall (if it's not already opened) and add soundproofing insulation.

Apparently you can also buy anti-vibration mats which my sister had to do in her condo.

A good friend of mine has her refrigerator next to her bedroom wall and has never mentioned it being a problem (although the bed is on another wall).

mine backs up litearly to where my head rests (bed is against the same wall the fridge is against.

I am a very light sleeper, but the off/on of the fridge never wakes me up. The only time I woke up was when the wall scones above the bed got tilted and when the fridge kicked on it caused that to vibrate slightly and gave off a small clanking noise. Hubby slept through it. I just had to straighten the scones and that took care of it.

We put insulation in that wall, but it's normal 2x4, sheetrock on both sides otherwise. We also put insulation in the ceiling of the bedroom to cut done noise from the room above too.

My cabinet wall is built out to the level of the fridge, and the fridge has a few inches of room behind it for air flow. We bumped the bedroom wall in 2' to make room for the fridge.

The one thing that does wake me up is when we have high winds and the damper on the range hood flaps, or when the cats walk across the cooktop and make it beep. Even with the cooktop locked, the cats sometimes set the timer, and when that goes off I have to get out of bed to shut it off - yea, the cats are the number 1 thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night!

It is probably impossible to say if this is going to be a problem, because you could be a light or a heavy sleeper, noise-sensitive or not, and the soon-to-be owner of a noisy or quiet refrigerator.

I once read a hilarious thread on noisy refrigerators, in the Appliance Forum, where people were complaining that they could hear ice being made in their refrigerators, whilst laying in their bedroom - around the corner, down the hall, in the other wing, across the grounds, in the next zip code, across the time zone line - it could be an hour earlier and these preternaturally gifted people would still be hearing their ice cubes drop.

Okay, it was hilarious to me. I'm insensitive. I live in a house full of stampeding children and yelling women. Sorry, dear, I meant ''women firmly expressing their views''.

Still, I think - kids, turn down that damn music! - sorry, can you hear me now? If your head is going to be right on the other side of the wall and you think you, or whoever you share your bed with, now or in the future*, might be light sleepers, I would really consider sound-insulating that wall. After all, it is not just the refrigerator that makes noise. Say that person A goes off for her beauty sleep, leaving person B to scrub the pots, do the dishes, clean the counters. All that inconsiderate disposal grinding, pot banging, dish clattering, cabinet door closing, and dishwasher running might possibly put a furrow in person A's delicate brow, no?

Somewhere toward the end of the thread linked, there is some info on sound insulating methods. You will have to research this yourself, your contractor may not know. If he suggests simply screwing on a second layer of drywall, then you'll know, that he, doesn't.

* One of my friends, when arguing with her husband over an idiosyncratic house he wanted to buy and she didn't, said ''someday, you'll die, and my next boyfriend and I won't be able to sell this house''. That must be powerful logic, because she won that argument, as she wins all arguments. Or, maybe it's because she has a pistol. No, I meant, is a pistol.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link

You could also do the spray foam insulation, which requires only a smallish hole in the wall. It's easier than removing large portions of the wall for the standard kind of insulation. Don't let the icemaker make ice at night - that will probably help.

Johnliu, I love that hilarious free-form response. Hee.

Thank you to all! I had a rough night worrying but woke to find some positive repsonses! Thanks for putting my mind at ease....

Like Johnliu, I have been surprised by the amount of attention and discussion given to noisy refrigerators. I've never considered them noisy appliances.

A little late on this, but we also have the fridge against our bedroom wall (although our bed is about six feet away from there on a different wall). I tried to move it when redesigning the kitchen, but it was really just the best/only place to put it.

Unlike the others, though, we *did* have problems with the noise in the old kitchen. We don't have problems in the new kitchen, and get this---it's the SAME FRIDGE! The issues in the old kitchen turned out to be that the cubby for the fridge was a wood platform built directly on the wood subfloor. It wasn't exactly level, which we didn't know and which apparently had been doing bad things to the fridge for 15 years. (Platform had been designed for a much smaller fridge and built out over the years as fridges got bigger.) Poor fridge---we thought it was just old and terrible, and as soon as we put it on level ground, it quieted down, the door started sealing properly, and the vent cover stopped falling off.

In the new kitchen, there is floor (Marmoleum tile with cork backing) underneath the fridge, which seems to help enormously. We do not have water to the fridge intentionally because of the bedroom noise, so no ice maker clunking to worry about. We also moved the fridge about a foot further from the head of the bed, which I'm sure didn't hurt. This is a 15-year-old fridge and I think new ones are generally quieter, so if you have solid flooring/insulation under it, you should be good. We didn't insulate the wall behind it because we weren't opening it for anything else, and opening walls triggers higher levels of review for our city as far as what you add and update, but if you're opening that wall anyway it seems like a smart plan.

Artemis, our refrig also quieted down when we moved it off the irregular floor and turned it 90degrees. One day I remarked to DH "Have you noticed when the refrigerator turned on?" and he agreed he no longer noticed it. Wonderful!
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cbonebt: Look for a stick-on product called e-Dead if you need to muffle appliances inside a cabinet housing. (Or cut engine noise in a classic car).

Dynamat will do that as well.

As to the fridge through the wall, it depends on the fridge. And I know I can hear my mom's FD Maytag only when it is making ice. Which is about hourly, depending. The rest of the time it is quiet.