No one likes a loud floor fan (especially in the bedroom). Floor fans are quite useful to provide ventilation and cooling, yes; but they tend to be quite noisy. The easiest way to deal with this is just to pick the quietest floor fan possible.
Now, how do you figure out which floor fans are the quietest?
Easy. Most floor fan producers include the noise levels in the specification sheet. Basically, you just have to open the specs sheets, go to the ‘Noise Output’ section, and see the decibel rating. Example: Noise Output 40 – 60 dB.
Obviously, opening 100s of specs sheets is a bother. That’s why we did that for you. When you can list 100+ floor fans and compare their noise levels, you can pretty easily figure out which floor fans produce the least amount of noise.
You can check the whole list, complete with spec-by-spec comparison and individual reviews here:
Skip To List Of 4 Quietest Floor Fans Here
Having a quiet floor fan is not enough, however. A fan also has to provide sufficient airflow, be reliable, and not be too expensive.
Here are the 3 key specifications you should check before buying a quiet floor fan:
1. Check Floor Fan Noise Levels (Quiet Fan Have Below 50 dB Noise Output)
Needless to say, low decibels are the most important specification you should check when choosing a super quiet floor fan.
However, a simple decibel rating won’t tell us much if we don’t understand what are standard noise levels of quiet floor fans. Here is a rough categorization of floor fans, based on how quiet/loud they are:
- 70+ dB: Very loud floor fans.
- 60-70 dB: Load floor fans.
- 50-60 dB: Standard noise floor fans.
- 40-50 dB: Quiet floor fans.
- 40 dB and below: Very quiet floor fans.
If you compare the noise levels of the best quiet floor fans in the specs table below, you can see that most of them have a below 40 dB noise output on the lowest fan speed setting.
It is important to understand, however, that we want airflow from floor fans. Floor fans with bigger airflow will inevitably have a higher noise output. Let’s look at the airflow rates and associated noise levels:
2. What Airflow Does A Floor Fan Produce? (CFM Output)
The whole point of having a floor fan is airflow output (measured in CFM or Cubic Feet per Minute). Floor fans with the lowest airflow will more likely have a very low decibel rating as well.
In general, most floor fans produce between 1,000 CFM and 3,000 CFM airflow.
To adequately ventilate a room, you would need at least 8 air changes per hour in that room. That means that you will need at least about 1 CFM per sq ft. With 1,000+ CFM airflow, almost all quiet floor fans will adequately ventilate any bedroom, living room, or even an entire home.
Of course, a 3,000 CFM floor fan will produce more noise than a 1,000 CFM floor fan. To assess how noisy these fans are, we have to account for airflow as well with sound performance:
3. Floor Fan Sound Performance
As you can see, the noise output of even the quietest floor fans depends on what airflow they generate. The fairest way to assess how quiet these floor fans actually are, we have to introduce a specification called ‘sound performance’.
Sound performance is basically a metric that tells us how much airflow (measured in CFM) a floor fan can generate if we raise its output noise levels by 1 decibel.
Here is the sound performance equation for floor fans:
Sound Performance = Max. Airflow Output / Max. Noise Output
Example: Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+ is considered the best quiet floor fan. It can generate 2,400 CFM at 60 dB noise output (this is the max. fan speed setting).
Here is how the sound performance is calculated:
Sound Performance = 2,400 CFM / 60 dB = 40 CFM/dB
That means this quiet floor fan will generate 40 CFM airflow for every decibel of sound. Of course, this metric has to be put in context.
Standard-noise floor fans produce below 25 CFM per dB. Floor fans that can manage to produce 30 CFM or more airflow per decibel are considered to have an airflow-balance silent operation.
With all this in mind, we can check which are the quietest floor fans currently on the market:
List Of Best Quiet Floor Fans
| Quiet Floor Fan: | 1. Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+ | 2. Vornado 630 CR1-0074-06 | 3. AICase Rechargeable Fan | 4. Tredy TD-CF-7M Small Fan |
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| Noise Levels: | 35 dB – 60 dB | 43 dB – 52 dB | 30 dB – 40 dB | 27 dB – ? |
| Max. Airflow: | 2,400 CFM | 1,600 CFM | 1,864 CFM | N/A |
| Sound Performance: | 40 CFM Per dB | 30.8 CFM Per dB | 46.6 CFM Per dB | N/A |
| Speed Settings: | 5 Speeds | 3 Speeds | 4 Speeds | 3 Speeds |
| Blade Diameter: | 15.6 Inches | 8.98 Inches | 8 Inches | 8 Inches |
| Price: | $$$$ | $$$$ | $$$$ | $$$$ |
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| Availability: | Check Price | Check Price | Check Price | Check Price |
1. Best Quiet Floor Fan With Pedestal Overall: Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+
| Noise Levels: | 35 dB – 60 dB |
| Max. Airflow: | 2,400 CFM |
| Sound Performance: | 40 CFM Per dB |
| Speed Settings: | 5 Speeds |
| Blade Diameter: | 15.6 Inches |
| Weight: | 17.6 lbs |
| Price: | $$$$ |
| Rating: | |
Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+ is one of the best-selling floor fans with a pedestal overall. With the 35 dB noise levels at the lowest fan speed setting, it is also one of the best (if not the best) quiet floor fans.
Rowenta fan can generate 2,400 CFM of airflow; that is one of the biggest fans with 15.6-inch blades. The key part is the pedestal. Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+ can be used as a:
- Floor fan.
- Pedestal fan.
This dual-usage is very convenient when you need ventilation at different heights.
The noise levels are – due to bigger blades requiring less RPMs – very low. At the lowest setting, Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+ produces only 35 dB of noise. At the highest output, however, the noise output rises up to 60 dB, which is not ideal.
You have 5 fan speed settings, each correlating to its out-noise output. At the highest 2,400 CFM airflow output, it has a 40 CFM/dB sound performance.
If you run it at the lower fan speed settings, the Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme+ is the quietest floor fan with a pedestal:
2. Most Popular Quiet Floor Fan: Vornado 630 CR1-0074-06
| Noise Levels: | 43 dB – 52 dB |
| Max. Airflow: | 1,600 CFM |
| Sound Performance: | 30.8 CFM Per dB |
| Speed Settings: | 3 Speeds |
| Blade Diameter: | 8.98 Inches |
| Weight: | 5.84 lbs |
| Price: | $$$$ |
| Rating: | |
Vornado 630 is one of the most recognizable floor fans. Like all Vornado fans, it uses the vortex air circulation airflow output, which has two advantages:
- Smaller blades required. Vornado 630 has below 9-inch blades (8.98-inch, to be exact) but can produce 1,600 CFM airflow. Compared to the big 15+ inch blades #1 Rowenta unit has, this is almost a comparable airflow output with blades that are about 50% shorter.
- Lower noise levels. The vortex air circulation produces less noise output than a standard high RPM floor fan.
The noise output of Vornado 630 is 43 dB at the lowest setting and 52 dB at the highest setting. It has 3 fan speeds in total. It doesn’t have extremely low decibel levels but the whole range of fan speeds does produce a minimal amount of noise.
If you check the sound performance, you can see that the Vornado 630 produces 30.8 CFM airflow per dB at the highest setting which is above the 25 CFM/dB sound performance of standard-noise floor fans.
Overall, Vornado 630 is one of the more reliable silent floor fans. It has the signature vortex airflow and costs about $70:
3. Quietest Rechargable Floor Fan With Pedestal: AICase Rechargeable Fan
| Noise Levels: | 30 dB – 40 dB |
| Max. Airflow: | 1,864 CFM |
| Sound Performance: | 46.6 CFM Per dB |
| Speed Settings: | 4 Speeds |
| Blade Diameter: | 8 Inches |
| Weight: | 2.09 lbs |
| Price: | $$$$ |
| Rating: | |
AICase is one of the more interesting floor fans. It is a battery-powered fan that can achieve incredibly low noise levels; from 30 to 40 dB. That’s amazing silent.
The battery-powered fan motor is extremely silent; that is a pro. It is, however, a battery-powered motor; that can be a con. Yes, it’s portable but in most cases, we use floor fans at home; plugin it into an outlet is much easier than recharging a battery.
Overall, the AICase floor fan has quite a powerful 1,864 CFM airflow output with 46.6 CFM/dB sound performance. This is the highest sound performance of all floor fans.
The problem with AICase fan is that it can be quite unreliable. That standing rod can be quite unstable, especially if you run the fan at the maximum output airflow.
Nonetheless, with a very low price tag of about $40, this might be an ideal quiet fan for your needs:
4. Small Quiet Portable Floor Fan: Tredy TD-CF-7M
| Noise Levels: | 27 dB – ? |
| Max. Airflow: | N/A |
| Sound Performance: | N/A |
| Speed Settings: | 3 Speeds |
| Blade Diameter: | 8 Inches |
| Weight: | 4.2 lbs |
| Price: | $$$$ |
| Rating: | |
Tredy TD-CF-7M is a very small quiet floor fan. It is a floor fan but it’s so small that you could also use it as a desk top fan.
It’s really hard to get the specs on the Tredy. But one spec that is available is the 27 dB noise levels at a low fan speed setting. That is literally the lowest decibel rating on any floor fan we have seen and that’s why we feel that the Tredy TD-CF-7M must be included in this list:
This has been a short overview of floor fans and their noise outputs. Hopefully, now you have a little more information on which you can base the decision about which is an ideal floor fan for you.