Hello all,
I'm looking into building an electric furnace. One of my reasons for doing this instead of a gas/oil burner furnace is the noise produced by either the blower or the compressed air. So, am i correct in this assumption? How loud is your furnace?
Thanks
Regards
Stuart
P.S. Sound level is important to me as i have neighbors close by and the WAP (wife approval factor) is important

Stuart,

I vote for electric. Whisper-quiet.

There is also no danger of exploding gasses or fuel spills. :eek:

The loudest sound you'll hear is dunking a hot casting in a bucket of water.

I use gasoil/electri and it's quiet enough to talk over...

Usually the internal cage fan has two speeds, take a look if it is on high speed or low, it makes a big difference in the noise level.

Some have a switch you can select the speed others you have to change the wire position, there will be a wiring drawing on the connection box to the fan, or in that area.

I use a natural gas fired furnace with a blower.The blower is housed in a separate console.The noise is not excessive....or maybe I don't hear as well as I used to.

Hello all,
I'm looking into building an electric furnace. One of my reasons for doing this instead of a gas/oil burner furnace is the noise produced by either the blower or the compressed air. So, am i correct in this assumption? How loud is your furnace?
Thanks
Regards
Stuart
P.S. Sound level is important to me as i have neighbors close by and the WAP (wife approval factor) is important


OK: I started out 15 years ago with an oil fired furnace - highly effective - would happily melt iron - but rather smelly. Next door neighbour sold the bottom of his garden for a house, and I ended up with their kitchen 10 foot from the foundry. No complaints from them, but I converted to propane before the complaints started. Propane fine for aluminium & bronze - no good for iron. So I bought an induction furnace - in itself quite quiet, but needs 100kva to drive it which I get from a 150 hp diesel generator - noise not too bad after soundproofing, but still not very neighbourly. I really want a cupola furnace but the spark plume is not acceptable in an urban area. SO - I'm moving house - bought a place with no neighbours closer than 1/2 mile and 12 acres to play in - move at the end of the month!!!!!

AWEM

My forced air charcole foundry is to loud if you don't get along with the neighbors. When I kick in the propane injection it gets even louder but not to bad. I moved onto 8 acres in the woods so there is no one around and it is a moot point.

My propane furnace is normally aspirated. Its whisper quiet so much so that you can have a normal conversation without having to raise your voice. It will do a 12kg bronze melt in around 45 min with each melt thereafter at around 15 – 20 minutes.
Now my 40kg cast iron oil fired furnace is another story.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/cmckeown/foundry.htm

Cam

I've got a fairly large (10.5" x 18" bore) natually aspirated furnace (propane with NO blower), and it is not all that loud at all. Burning at 10psi, it cannot be heard more than 30 feet away outside. At lower psi, it is just a faint rumble. One thing that will help a lot is rounding your vent opening to reduce the turbulance of your exhaust gasses; less turbulance, less noise. Another thing that will help is partially covering your vent opening with a fire brick - I use a custom cast vent brick with rounded edges to cut down on noise. See here if interested:

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1711

Good luck :)