---
title: "GE Appliance Noises: The Ones GE Says Are Normal, and the Ones That Are Not"
description: "Ge washer making loud noise when spinning, a dryer squeal, a refrigerator that clicks: which GE noises are documented as normal and which get more expensive by…"
url: "https://gemiami.support/blog/ge-appliance-noises-that-are-normal/"
date_modified: "2026-08-31"
Category: "Common Problems"
---


# GE Appliance Noises: The Ones GE Says Are Normal, and the Ones That Are Not

## Ge washer making loud noise when spinning: is it the machine?

Some of it is, and a surprising amount of it is not — and GE publishes documents about both, which is unusual and useful.

## The noises GE says are normal

**HydroWave washers.** GE has a whole article explaining the sounds these machines make, because they genuinely sound different from what people expect and the calls kept coming. If yours has always made the noise, that is a completely different conversation from one that started last week — which is the first thing we ask.

**Banging while filling.** Their answer to that one is not the appliance at all: it is most likely plumbing, rattling pipes when the fill valve snaps shut. **Their own advice is to call a plumber.** We would rather tell you that before a visit than during one.

**Ice production.** A refrigerator icemaker cycling, dropping cubes and refilling is a startling amount of noise at three in the morning and entirely normal.

## The ones worth acting on

Three patterns separate these from the ones above.

**It got louder gradually.** Wear rather than an event. A dryer squeal that has been there a month, a washer that hums louder each season.

**It changes when you turn the drum by hand.** With the machine off, turn the drum. Grinding, resistance or free play each point at a different part, and all three mean something mechanical. This is the single most informative thing anybody can do before calling.

**It is metallic, and it is new.** Something has come loose or broken. Stop the machine.

## The dryer squeal, which is the classic

A dryer that squeals is a drum roller, an idler pulley or a glide. GE distinguishes dryer noises in their own support article for exactly this reason.

It is worth booking early and the reason is arithmetic rather than urgency. A roller caught while it is squealing is a cheap repair. A seized roller takes the belt with it, and sometimes the motor, and then it is a different figure. These parts also wear as a set, so replacing one of a worn group is how a repair repeats itself in six months — we do them together.

## Describing it usefully

The adjective matters less than the moment. On the phone, the useful answers are:

- **When**: filling, washing, draining, spinning, idle, or only at the start.- **Since when**: always, this month, or suddenly.- **What changed**: a move, a heavy load, a new installation, a power cut.

Three sentences, and they narrow a diagnosis further than any recording.

## The one that means stop

Anything accompanied by a burning smell, and anything metallic and repeated at speed. Those are not diagnostic puzzles — switch the appliance off at the breaker and leave it off. Running a machine that is grinding metal against metal turns a part into an assembly.

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