Air Conditioning Silencer from Wacko Products???

[bowler1]

Does anyone have experience or knowledge about the Wacko Products Air Conditioner Silencer? I stumbled upon this online and from the very few reviews I saw it seems to work, but I have only seen a handful of reviews and they could be "fake" so I wanted to ask here.

It's for use with a standard ducted A/c unit and they claim 8-10db of noise reduction. $200 is what they cost so they are a bit pricey, but could be worth it if they quiet down the A/C a bit.

We have a whisper quiet A/C in our living room and a standard in the master bedroom and it is loud as a 747.

Matt

[rexlion]

I gather that these WackO covers are only for ducted systems and not for ductless A/C units? I am looking at buying a small TT, about 17', and they don't come with ducted systems. I was hoping this would be a way to quiet that type of A/C.

[FlatBroke]

I had 2 Bighorns and over at their forum someone came up with “the tent in the vent”. Basically the air comes straight down, hits the cover, and has to find its way to the side ducts. Fix is to make a piece of sheet metal into the shape of a V. Turn the V upside down like this ^. Furnace tape it to the ducts and fill any gaps so when the air come down it hits the^ and flows directly to the vents. I made my V with curves it for a better flow. Made air quieter and much stronger. Only had one AC in our Bighorns and it worked great. Air to the bedroom was very much improved. Only downside is all the sawdust you have to clean up that was blown out of the vents, LOL. Our Nu-Wa AC was installed much better and works great so I haven’t needed to do that mod.

[jyenter]

We purchased one and it does reduce the AC noise alot. My wife always complained about how loud it was when fan was set on high.

After I installed it, I set the fan on HIGH, asked my wife to come out to listen to it. When she herd it she said it much quieter than before, now put the fan on high. I said it is, she could believe the difference. Fan set on low is almost silent.

Another big plus is the filter, it's a good quality reusable filter. Not cheap piece of foam.

[rexlion]

They could have picked a better name. WackO? Sheesh. Reminds me of a small company I dealt with in the '80s that called itself Autumn Steel & Silo Co. They stamped A S S C O on their products. Considering the QC (bad heat treat) problems they had, the abbreviation fit.

[beemerphile1]

I bought one and it is an insane price. I imagine in time there will be competing products and the price will come down.

It does quiet the system down and stopped that annoying noise in my ears, my wife. I CAN'T HEAR! TURN UP THE TV! CAN'T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT THING!

[georgelesley]

I did ours and measured a 3-4 db improvement. I spoke to to CS guy and he helped me with a few tips. They claim 3-6 db improvement. Not sure where OP got the 8-10 db number but when I bought ours and looked at their site it claimed 3-6 db improvement. I suspect if you have a dump opening you will get the high end, if not, the lower end. Bottom line, much quieter and no longer have to turn up the TV. I recommend it.

[YC_1]

After spending countless hours building my own a few years back I came across their great looking product. They work as advertised and were within 1 db of the ones I built. The advantage of mine was being able to select which side I wanted the air inlet to be. Getting that away from direct ear shot saves a db or so alone. The Wakos are incredibly well built and a brilliant design. It is amazing how much work goes into making and selling something like this.

The air filter alone is a superb design. I could never get the right filter setup on my builds. It would be nice if they had a quick release to be able to clean the filter. Full timing living at the end of a dirt road makes them clog quickly and taking the four screws out to remove the cover and then loostening four others is a bit o a pain but I liked the first one so much I bought the second one too.

My design got rid of the noisy down dump and that alone made a huge difference. You can probably improve your air flow while the cover is off and look at your registers. Mine were never trimmed down so stuck into the ducting almost to the top. The air had to struggle to get up and down into the outlet. Trimming the tubes made a phenominal improvement in air flow.

The product is not cheap but sitting under one of those noisy AC's is a real pain full timing in Florida.

[IAMICHABOD]

There was a thread about them a couple years ago that may be of help to you.

Here it is

[pianotuna]

Hi,

There are alternatives!

https://youtu.be/cct1QfLiT6s