I think the surrounding chatter of a home full of as many people that are needed to accommodate 5 or 6 refrigerator/ freezer units is enough to muffle the sound that the appliance makes.

You could just turn on the blender and then you won't notice any of it ;)

I'm with LK NYCish, 5-6 is a lot of compressors. Fridge + Freezer + Wine fridge + Ice maker is only 4. If you have a flash chiller for on-demand seltzer machine (with a carbonator) that would be loud as well. I located ours in the basement because it is right under the kitchen and easy to route a 3" chase up from the basement to the kitchen counter. It hangs from some ceiling joists down there on a suspended shelf. I don't know if relocating some stuff might help.

Maybe this is a good reason to go for appliances that use one compressor for multiple functions? For instance, is there a fridge that is large & has a separately controlled drawer for wine / apps / fresh meat? I have seen this on standard 36" wide units, there is a drawer that is adjustable separate from the main fridge. I am guessing you are looking at Sub-Zero instead of Samsung, but perhaps they have something like this?

Last year I installed Sub-Zero integrated 36" fridge column and 24" freezer column. They are pretty quiet. I also have a ULine under counter 15" beverage fridge that we reused and is 7 years old. The small fridge makes more noise than the SZ.

Sometimes you just don't know which unit will cause a problem due to its location. One location in the kitchen could be fine, but another might create an echo.

My contractor installed fans in our crawl space, which are on a timer. I can hear them if no one else is in the house. Since they are attached to the floor beam structure, the vibration hum gets transmitted through the hardwood floor. A damp crawlspace is worse than a slight hum a few hours a day!

All kinds of things make noises in houses.

Better Design than you are currently contemplating will make the difference. Design something sane that doesn’t need 6 refrigerators. And the ones that do make the cut get surrounds with added insulation built into the design. That takes away space, but when sound is your priority, that’s your trade off that you pick. Insulation space and expense is still far less space and expense than taken up by 6 refrigerators.

The sound of any sound-producing appliance will be amplified a bit if the appliance is in direct contact with a wall or structural element. Mounting the devices on compliant materials will usually eliminate that effect. Mounting fans on rubber mounts should make them almost inaudible, especially when they're in your attic or basement.

Is this a joke? If it isn't it's either

A . A home 150 mile from a grocery

B On an island with monthly service to land and still no grocery

C . You run a deli business from home

D. it's something else, like a dozen children, in which case fridge noise seems the least of the issue

E. Or ........you need a COOLING PANTRY ROOM , designed for cooling only, and totally soundproofed. Put this under the heading of " much better kitchen design" .

F. It's a joke, really.

G . You have "dog ears" . Because street noise, people noise, tv noise, .............even "noise" in the so called very noisy silence of a deep woods render the condenser noise a nit.

Don't get a separate ice maker.........that much is certain.

Last, where is the kitchen that goes with all this cooling and the house with the open floor plan that holds this kitchen>?

That many fridges= a lot of electricity

...Maybe the OP has a need to store multiple deceased bodies on site for uh....business reasons...? Can't keep food and drinks in the same refrigerators as you keep the bodies in! ;)

I hope the OP has thought of the electrical panel she will need for this kitchen.

I am assuming the OP is a caterer. Though it would be nice to think she is cooking for Meals on Wheels or something like that, but I think those charities get space at commercial kitchens.

Currently, I have a Whirlpool fridge/freezer and a wine cooler in the kitchen. They're all pretty quiet. There will eventually be an upright freezer once I move it up here from the old home, in the pantry. I've only noticed that item making a noise when it starts a new cycle or whatever the proper term is. (And, pre-tinnitus, which I am going to swear has come from too many MRIs on my dang knee...)

As is, the gentle hum isn't quite sufficient to drown out my apparently-mild tinnitus. Unfortunately.

I don't have an icemaker, so I don't need to listen to ice packets dropping into their collection basket. Back at my parents' in the old days, it was never an issue.

I am going to assume the OP is running a home business and prepping foods for it, or is needing space to put up home-raised livestock for storage, or is a crack shot venison hunter. Please do have a serious generator for power outages! I am personally aiming for something like the second - there's a chest freezer in the basement here as well. I raise my own chickens and I participate in local farmer meat shares where I get half a pig or such. I would NOT put them all in the same space, but there may be reasons the OP needs to do so.

PS, the chest freezer in the basement is the noisiest, but only the cats sleep down there.

I am thinking the op has left the discussion.

I'm thinking I was right and its a joke : )

Off the top of my head I can think of a refrigerator column, a freezer column, a wine cooler, and a beverage cooler - and while the latter two can be combined, if you've got kids it's often better to have those separate for several reasons. If someone throws a lot of larger parties, they will want an ice maker. That's 5 there. That's just for residential without a small home business. So, I think it's entirely possible it wasn't a joke. I've friends that tend to throw huge parties, and they use all those items... yes, the separate ice maker too.

To answer your question, I would say look for units that are reviewed as having quiet compressors, and demo them in person if at all possible. I don't know if you can put some smaller units inside a cabinet - or if you'd even want to go that route, but that'd help if it's a large concern of yours.

The answer is easier than you would think. Add carpet squares behind the refrigerator(s) to prevent reflective sounds. The carpet absorbs quite a bit of the noise. If the refrigerators are in a cabinet you can line the entire cabinet in carpet squares. Just ensure you are not blocking air flow.

I have a Liebherr and it's silent.

I too assume this is a hoax thread.

That said. my Fisher Paykel is silent, just as Reno's Liebherr. I think it might make some noises from time to time if we had the waterline connected to the ice maker.

But, we don't use ice often, so no noises. :-) For parties, I prefer fresh ice from the grocery vs ice that's been sitting in the little bin for weeks.

Annoyance over appliance noise is certainly not a "hoax." Many people are disturbed by the noise of refrigerators, freezers, and dishwashers, etc.. A new generation of truly silent refrigerators may now be on the market, but a few years ago when I bought a full-size, compressor-type refrigerator, I shared the fridge-noise problem until I moved the new machine from my kitchen area into another room, putting 30 or so feet and a couple of walls between it and me. At that time, a discussion of appliance noise had attracted dozens of respondents to a website called the GardenWeb, predecessor to this site.

Keith - the hoax remark refers to the OP wanting 6 (SIX!) fridges/freezers and worrying about their combined noise level.....

I can think of a few reasons why the OP might want this many refrigeration units. How about a Kosher kitchen? Or, perhaps she has a celiac in the home. Perhaps there is someone in the family who requires entirely separate cooking/refrigeration space. And, the most obvious would be someone who caters from their home kitchen.

Then, there are the multiple units we find in homes today. I've got two Subzero 30" refrigerators with double freezer drawers, and a separate ice machine. I'd like a wine storage unit, too. Maybe they have a kegerator. I'd love a set of refrigerator drawers by the range.

Before you know it, you've got a lot of units. And, a really big power bill.

katop

Glad to see this thread is not a hoax thread. I don't think people who suspected it to be a hoax, would think you crazy or unreasonable (me included). It's always good, if a thread is suspected to be a hoax to have it called out quickly, so that as few people as possible waste their time responding.

In fact, I too like quiet appliances. Spent quite a bit of money on a super quiet Miele or maybe Gaggenau DW back in the eighties, when silent appliances weren't really on anyones radar yet here in the US.

As I stated above, our 36" french door FP is utterly silent. Doesn't make a peep. Same with the Liebherr that Renovator recommends.

I think the loudest cooling appliances are the small beverage and wine fridges. So those will be really worth researching.

Somewhat off topic: I do have one appliance that's actually too quiet. WAY too quiet!!! My Bosch Benchmark built-in oven's timer/alarm is so darn quiet, nobody can hear it if on the other side of the island, or the water is running, or the meat is sizzling in the pan, or god forbid, people are talking / laughing while cooking. So, here I have a one year old oven and need to wind up my old school kitchen timer that now is sitting on the counter. As I said on another thread, I'm glad Bosch doesn't make smoke detectors....

As for noise in kitchens, I have heard it's louder in an island versus against a wall. Insulation in walls helps drown out noise.

My friend who is sensitive to noise putting dishwasher in island because of the noise when using. Cabinet Islands have little installation. Consider building a shorter wall on back of island to help reduce noise from appliances within.

https://www.quiethomelab.com/loud-home-appliances/

Check decimal levels on manuals before purchasing

Average

refrigerator: 50 db

dishwasher: 55-75 db

Get soft close cabinet drawers & doors.

Certain floors are louder than others.

Big rooms echo, big curtains can help sound from bouncing off walls.

Rugs help as well.

https://www.hometips.com/buying-guides/soundproofing-insulation.html

BTW the wording posted without further description of sizes or types in beginning made me think of tall fridge/freezers. I thought you were talking about a wall of frigeration,like a commercial kitchen. Lol.

Just wanted to chime in ... I recently sent back 2 (TWO!) Samsung fridges for excessive fan noise. You know that trick where you put playing cards in bicycle spokes? That's what they sounded like. It was awful, I could hear it anywhere on the first floor. The delivery guy told me, "all fridges sound like that" but since my basement fridge is a Samsung I knew that wasn't true.

I wound up with an LG with bells and whistles I did not want (like ice and water thru the door). And it is QUIET. I wondered about the trade off I was making to sacrifice fresh food space for a possibly quieter fridge and it IS worth it. I don't know if manufacturers are using marginal components (louder than normal fans) in the simpler, cheaper models. I would have gladly bought a Bosch or Liebherr if it would have fit a standard depth, 36" cabinet but no luck there.

My advice is to go to an appliance store (not Lowes or HD) that is QUIET and listen to them midday. Whenever the store is least busy is when you want to go, have them turn on each unit that is on display mode (so the compressor and fan starts working hard) and really listen to it. That's what we did and it worked, the KA and Samsung were LOUD. GE and LG were quiet, but GE was backordered by 3 weeks. So LG is what we got.

I prefer buying appliances from local appliance stores that service the appliances . Their knowledge, experience & individual service surpasses the big box, understaffed stores.