Elliptical trainer for home use: Concerns about noise

Question

My question is about how quiet an elliptical trainer is in use in a home setting.

Background

My wife and I jog irregularly but really enjoy it when we do get out. We find it tough in the winter in the UK because we both work full time and there are only around 8 hours of sunlight in the UK at this time of year!

We're considering buying an elliptical trainer to complement our irregular jogging. We've been thinking of the best time to fit in some regular cardio exercise and before work at around 6am and after work at around 9 pm are the times we have free.

My concerns are:

1. Waking up the wife if I exercise at 6am
2. Annoying the neighbours if we exercise at 9pm

Proposed location

We live in a semi-detached house and the room I'm considering putting it in is on the ground floor. There are solid brick/concrete walls between our house and the next. Ours and the neighbours bedroom are on the first and second floor so are a reasonable distance away from where the trainer would be.

Proposed equipment

I'm considering a Vision Fitness X6100 HR Folding Elliptical. According to their website "Additionally, they may work out in the early morning or late evening and do not want to disturb others. Vision Fitness is aware of this and, therefore, developed our Quiet-Glide™ drive technology, which utilizes a multi-ribbed supersilent Poly-V belt, to ensure an extra-quiet workout."

Vision Fitness elliptical trainers - Quiet

The above sounds great, but I'm not one to believe the marketing claims without some real-world recommendations.

Summary of the question

• How realistic is it that I can work out on the ground floor in the morning whilst my wife stays soundly asleep on the second?
• Will our neighbours hate us if we use the trainer at 9pm or will it be no worse from a noise point of view than say watching TV in the next room?

Any advice on this matter would be welcomed.

Answer 1

The best approach is find a place that either has these or sells them. Test it out. When talking about an expensive piece of equipment like this, you really want to have your hands on it before paying. That will allow you to determine if it is quiet enough.

In general, the more solid the frame, the quieter it will be. So while the traditional frames will be quieter, it will be more difficult to store. All in all, most elliptical trainers I've used are more than quiet enough.

The biggest question is, how soundly does your wife sleep? Making noise for your neighbors will be the least of your worries unless you have neighbors below you. Then you want something solid that won't lift up if you push yourself on the elliptical.

A couple of pointers to make the area as quiet as possible:

• Test the floor to see if it squeaks. If so, get a hammer and renail the floor to the joists. If you have wood flooring get a 2x4 to protect the wood finish while you hammer the nails back down. As houses age, the floor board warps, and pulls nails loose in the floor joists.
• Use blankets or other heavy material to absorb sound--particularly around the door. You probably won't need to go this far, though.