Water Sounds & Decibel Levels
Water sounds can be wonderful. Too much sound of water falling into water can, for some, be irritating. Any pump noise is irritating to everyone and not acceptable. This page explains the sounds you can expect from our fountains.
Sound travels in waves. The intensity of energy that these sound waves produce is measured in units called decibels (dB). The lowest hearing decibel level is 0 dB, which indicates nearly total silence and is the softest sound that the human ear can hear. Generally speaking, the louder the sound, the higher the decibel number. So, just how much sound can you expect from our fountains and how does that compare to other common sounds?
There are several factors to understand about our fountains and the sound level they provide.
- Rustling leaves 20 dB
- Whisper: 30 dB
- Normal conversation: 60 dB
- Lawn mower: 90 dB
- Movie theater: 80-100 dB
- Live music: 100-130 dB
- Indoor fountain – 0 – 25 dB
To the left you see some standard indicators from rustling leaves to live music. Our fountains nearly all go from about 0 dB to about 10 dB depending on the pump settings with some capable of greater water sounds. For example the globe fountain (with lights) above goes from goes from about 2dB to 12 dB and is 100% water sounds, no pump noise.
The Koi & Frog pond fountain with the stream is surprisingly quiet. If you turn the pump up so the stream falls near the far edge of the bowl you will have a dB of about 4 or 5. On a lower setting as shown the fountain will have about a 2 dB.
The Pomegranate fountain has four thin streams and produces a decible level of about 12 from the water sounds. Remember that all our indoor fountains can be set to a higher or lower setting with a simple pump adjustment that lets more or less water into the pump.
