How to Make a Riding Lawn Mower Quieter
Riding lawn mowers are not the quietest kind of machinery you find at home. If you are asking yourself how to make a riding lawn mower quieter at home, then you will find these tips I am about to share here useful.
Mowing lawns with a noisy riding lawn mower especially in the morning can get you, angry neighbors. People don’t appreciate being blasted with loud noise in the morning.
That is why quieting a lawn mower is important. There are a couple of ways you can use to reduce the noise coming from a riding lawn mower to avoid damaging your ear drums or disturbing others with noise.
Keep reading to find out more…
Why is My Riding Lawn Mower So Loud?
Most of the noise coming from lawn mowers is from the engine. The original mufflers that are fitted to most engines during manufacturing are usually cheap basic ones popularly known as absorptive mufflers.
These mufflers create very small gas flow restrictions but are great for power. That is why lawn mowers are noisy.
Manufacturers could make lawn mowers less noisy but they don’t because that will mean sacrificing cost and engine power.
Another part of the mower that makes noise is the spinning blade, just like a helicopter spinning blades cutting through the air.
Anyways, riding lawn mower noise comes from four main sources. These are the engine, fan blades, the exhaust/mufflers, and the gaskets,
Ways to Make a Riding Lawn Mower Quieter
Below are possible solutions for lawn mower excessive noise. However, if you looking for a noise reduction below 20 decibels, then a lawn mower may not be the best.
1). Clean or Replace Muffler
Check your muffler for damage. They can get really hot and are prone to cracking corrosion. This can result in them being ineffective. They can be repaired by a local muffler shop. Otherwise, it’s best to replace the cracked one with a new muffler.
Mowers also cause a lot of vibration and this can cause the muffler, heatshields, and baffle to become loose inside. To test for the looseness, give the muffler a tap with the handle of a tool like a screwdriver and listen for any rattle.
The baffles live inside of the muffler and may break loose with time and cause a thin metallic-sounding rattle.
2). Do a Double Muffler Setup
If you double the muffler in your lawn mower, the level of noise will reduce. With this trick, you will still hear some noise but not as much as if it were only one muffler.
You can employ this trick, at least you will reduce the noise by 10%.
3). Use Ear Protection
Ear protection is necessary when using any noisy equipment. Even if you have managed to reduce the noise level in your mower, you will still need to wear ear protection to protect your ears.
Otherwise, long exposure to high levels of noise can affect your hearing in the long term.
Loud machinery has rendered too many people partially deaf. It can be a pain in the neck having a conversation with such a person.
To prevent such from occurring, it’s better to block your eardrums with hearing protection such as earmuff or earplugs.
This should be an additional noise reduction. If you can reduce the noise on the mower itself and add ear protection to it, that will be great.
4). Purchase a Quieter Riding Lawn Mower
Just like many products on the market, you can find quiet riding lawn mowers in the market. you will find that some manufacturers have invested time and more resources into getting riding lawn mowers that are quiet.
In this article, I covered some of the quiet zero-riding lawn mowers in the market.
5). Soundproof Your Deck
Most of the time when you walk by a super loud lawn mower, it’s the engine that makes the most noise.
The blade as earlier mentioned also creates a bit of noise sometimes mainly when a little stone or debris hits them. The blades will produce pinging sounds.
There are things you can do to help minimize the noise. Valve lash should be checked and adjusted every year, it doesn’t take long. Not only will it cut down on noise, but it’ll also give you more power and better gas mileage.
So people install sound-absorbing material on the engine deck to absorb the excess noise. if you decide to go this route, just be careful not to cover the airflow that effectively relieves the engine of extra heat.
Final Thoughts
Follow these steps and you’ll likely reduce the amount of noise your lawn mower makes, and in the event that you don’t manage that, you’ll at least improve your own experience from a user perspective.
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