Wind chimes have a long history of creating a peaceful and soothing environment. Most people use them outdoor, in spaces like gardens, patios, porches, balconies, gazebos, etc. Some materials make the chime sound loud and may irritate your neighbors.
You can get wind chimes in different styles, designs, and sizes. They produce different tunes, sounds, and durability.
Sound affects you in different ways. For instance, when you surround yourself with unpleasant sounds, it affects your behavior negatively. You’ll constantly have bad moods, poor sleeping patterns, and poor health. Pleasant sounds give opposite effects.
Psychologically, pleasant sounds reduce anxiety, stress, and anger. You also reap some physiological benefits where you get regular heartbeats, normal breathing rates, and relaxed muscles. Loud and distracting noise affects your cognitive ability negatively. Always seek peaceful sounds to improve your concentration and productivity.
Types of Quiet Wind Chimes
Below are five wind chimes that will give you peaceful and relaxing sounds without distracting your neighbors.
Natural Bamboo Wind Chimes
Metal chimes produce a loud noise. Strong winds will send their clanking sound to your neighbors.
You may also feel uncomfortable with the noise when the winds are strong. Thus, it’s wise to select wind chimes with materials that produce soft sounds even in strong winds.
Natural bamboo wind chimes are the best selection when you want a soothing sound in your relaxation space. They have low notch sounds with relaxing and mellow tones.
You can check out the Nalulu Classic Bamboo Wind Chimes. They are handcrafted and available in different designs. The bamboo tubes are well dried and cured. Different sizes produce different tones.
The bamboo chimes have durable stainless steel hooks. Also, they have big clappers to increase vibration and double coats varnish for extra shine.
Azure Capiz Wind Chimes with Wooden Hanger
Do you like walking by the beach and listening to the wind and seashells sliding past each other? The intensity of the sound and the sweet melodies increase with the strength of the wind.
You need not wait to visit the beach to enjoy the relaxing sound. Woodstore Azure Capiz Wind Chimes offers you the same relaxation.
All you need is to visit the Woodstore Chimes store online and order your handcrafted seashell chimes.
Capiz shells are delicate. Thus, you should handle them with care. Ensure you hand them to an area with no strong winds. Despite their delicate nature, they produce gentle voices when they knock against each other.
The Design by Woodstore has several Capiz shells in different sizes. It ensures that it produces varied voices depending on the strength of the wind.
The shells are held together by a transparent nylon cord. It’s strong, durable, and suitable for all weather variations. The invisible nature of the cord makes you see the Capiz shells hanging in the air from a distance.
Ceramic Wind Chimes
Ceramic wind chimes can be heavy or light, depending on the size of the chime beads. You can select from a variety of designs available in the market.
Ceramic wind chimes are a mix of factory-made and handcrafted art. You need the factory setting to make the chime beads. Alternatively, you can buy ready-made ceramic beads for your chimes.
You don’t need to make your chimes from scratch. Deco 79 has ready-made ceramic wind chimes. The stoneware chimes suspend on iron cord and oak.
Some designs have plain colors, while others are colorful. You select each depending on the theme you need for your outdoor space.
The chimes produce soft tinkling sounds that increase with the speed and strength of the wind.
Clear Crystal Wind Chimes
Crystals are another alternative for peaceful chimes for your relaxation garden. Many designs have crystal prisms made in different chandelier designs.
Depending on the designer’s creativity, some crystals resemble teardrops, balls, rocket heads, pointy beads, and other designs.
The glass prisms are more beautiful on a sunny day. They’ll scatter sunlight in different directions, assuming the colors of refracted light at different angles.
Crystal wind chimes are suitable for indoor and outdoor decor. They emit soft and crisp sounds. If you work from home, the chimes near your workstation will help improve your concentration and productivity.
Coconut Shell Wind Chimes
Coconut is one of the few fruits with a hard shell and soft pulp. The shells are useful in many ways – including making wind chimes.
The artisan dry, design, and hand polish the shells to get beautiful wind chimes.
The chimes are environmentally friendly. The raw materials occur naturally. Also, they help decongest the compost pits by reusing the coconut shells, which could have ended up as trash.
Vance Coconut Wind Chimes are 28 inches long and have 35 coconut shells hanging on ten strong strings. They produce rich and deep times depending on the size of the shells.
One downside is that the strings might tangle if you hang them under the strong direct wind.
How to Muffle Wind Chimes
It’s exciting to buy and install wind chimes. At first, you might enjoy the tinkling of the chimes until you experience some strong winds. Your peaceful chimes now sound violent and distracting.
Since you can’t control nature, you can opt to apply different methods to muffle your wind chimes in case of strong winds, as below.
Hang Your Chimes in Less Windy Areas
Wind chimes produce sound only when the wind pushes them. The cylinders, tubes, beads, or prisms knock against each other, producing a tinkling sound.
The intensity of the sound depends on the speed and strength of the wind, the material of the chimes, and the method you use to muffle the noise.
Hanging chimes in less windy areas ensures you have a soft and relaxing sound all the time.
If you are using the wind chimes outdoors, look for a spot where the wind is blocked. You can always move the chime to a different area if unbearable the shattering noise.
Stash Pieces of Cotton in Cylinders
Several wind chimes have a cylinder design. However, metal chimes are the noisiest. Most people shun them, especially when they need them for their outdoor space.
You no longer need to avoid the beautiful chimes when you have a life hack to silence them.
Stash some cotton wool inside each cylinder. It ensures there’s limited space for sound vibration. Thus, the chimes will produce a softer sound than when you use them when cylinders are empty.
Cotton in a cylinder is the simplest DIY wind chime silencer.
The method may be unsuitable for other materials for various reasons. However, it doesn’t hurt to try it out with your bamboo or glass cylinder chimes.
Reduce the Number of Tubes
Chimes produce sound when the tubes or beads knock against each other. Their closeness increases the chances of knocking against each other.
When you remove a few tubes or beads, you minimize the chances of knocks. Thus, you reduce the noise that chimes can produce.
The solution is simple to apply. However, it’s not suitable for all designs. Some chimes have complex artistry, and interfering with the art reduces the beauty of the chimes.
Restrict Tube Movement
There are various methods you can apply to restrict chime movements. First, you can tie the chine tubes together with a string.
However, this method applies when the chimes have a slim design and the tubes are close together.
You can tie a thread around each tube or bead on a chime. Ensure the string distance between the tubes is even. It ensures that the movement of the chime reduces.
Also, the tubes will knock against each other with a sifter intensity.
Apply Foam Padding or Tape Around the Striker
The base of the tubes are the chime strikers that create the loudest sound. You can reduce the noise if you arrest it at the striker. Duct tape or foam padding silences the sound from a chime.
Use Wind Chime Silencer
Most of the methods above may not work when you have a complex chime design. Thus, you need an advanced method to silence the wind chimes.
Wind chime silencers are excellent when using them on large wind chimes. They are useful when there are strong winds, kids are playing around the chimes, or some people are sleeping close to the chimes.
You won’t need to take down the chimes. Instead, you’ll install the silencer on the chimes.
Chime silencers are in different designs. Each style can cater to various types of chimes. A multipurpose chime silencer is great as you’ll need a few for different chime designs.
On Quiet Wind Chimes
Sometimes, you may want the quiet wind chimes sounds outdoors but keep your indoors silent. Thus, you can use soundproof curtains for the rooms adjacent to the chimes. Also, you can use chimes with materials with soft sounds.
Don’t throw away your chimes because you bought them without thorough research. You can silence your beautiful chimes with any of the methods above.
Experiment with different ways to silence wind chimes until you find a suitable method.
Suppose you want to buy your first wind chime and select glass, solid wood, and ceramic materials. They make beautiful and quieter chimes. So, you won’t need to apply several methods to muffle wind chimes.
Meet Mike O’Connor, (a DIY enthusiast), living in Cincinnati, a city ranked as the noisiest in the USA.
As a work from home dad, I have a first hand experience of how noise can truly affect your well being.
Soundproofing isn’t something that should be taken as a hobby, it should be a skill that every homeowner should be equipped with.
Most of the work documented on this blog comes from purely first hand experience, and the products recommended work as indicated.