Silence your Silvia

Another simple mod for Silvia is to make it a bit more silent ! She does scream a bit the old lady.

It doesn’t take much cash to do this mod, but I do take some time to disassemble the machine.

A lot of material can be used, if its sound or heat proof in any way, it should do. Most I have heard about used floor insulation. It’s a green mat to put under floorboards. It can be bought relatively cheap in the same store you would buy the floor. Just be sure that its non toxic and can hold against the heat.

I have used insulation from a dishwasher; it’s thicker than other materials, and it was free. 

It is very simple; just remove all the plates you would like to soundproof. What is most important is to get insulation around the pump, that’s the noisiest part.

This is what I did:

Remove the top plate and water reservoir.

Remove middle and back plate to expose the pump. 

At this point you can attach your material with double sided tape, to all the disassembled parts. The thicker a layer you get, and the closer you get the joints, the better a result you get in the end. On the back plate there are not much space, my material were too thick, so I just split it with a sharp knife. To finish off I mounted electrician tape around the edge of the top plate, to remove the resonance made when metal vibrates against metal.

Now you can mount material around the pump. I cut different sized pieces to get as much possible in there. I simply closed it in completely.

Now it’s time to put the machine back together. Just bring together the bits in the same order you took it apart. 

Last I mounted more tape to the edge where the grate lays on top, again to remove resonance.

Conclusion

It is a lot less noise now !!

But it is not silent. The noise has come to a much more low frequency humming, instead of the regular metal screaming noise.

I am very happy with the result. I believe it did a big difference.

Enjoy