Is there a Canadian standard for quiet pickleball equipment?

Why the equipment matters most

Established Measured

Every other remedy for pickleball noise works on the path the sound takes: distance, barriers, hours. Equipment works on the sound itself. A peer-reviewed 2025 study found that most of the sound of a strike comes from the paddle face vibrating, and that paddle material and design shape both the pitch and how long the face rings [2]. A Canadian acoustic consultant estimates that quieter equipment can reduce levels by up to about 5 dBA [3].

A quieter paddle helps at every distance and every window, including the upper-storey windows that a barrier at court level may do little for. It needs no construction. It also depends entirely on someone being able to say, with a published test, which equipment is quieter. What is that sound?

What exists today

Established

USA Pickleball, the governing body for the sport in the United States, announced a Quiet Category for pickleball products on 25 September 2023. USA Pickleball described qualifying equipment as having "essentially 50 percent or less of the acoustic footprint" of equipment commonly used in community parks, and said it would provide test fixture requirements and procedures to manufacturers [1]. The announcement does not supply a public measurement method that would let a municipality reproduce that comparison. Its current Quiet Category list includes paddles, covers and sleeves, and balls [4].

Two figures appear everywhere in coverage of the category: below 80 decibels and below 600 hertz. They come from the announcement of the first certified paddle in November 2023, and describe that product's reported performance rather than a published category threshold. No measurement distance or method was given with them [5].

Provided to manufacturers is not the same as published.

For a manufacturer seeking a listing, that arrangement may work well. For a municipality it is a problem. A by-law that relies on a threshold that has not been published, which no independent laboratory can reproduce from public information and no resident can look up, has handed its standard to a private body in another country. If that body changes its list, the meaning of the by-law changes with it.

A rule with no standard behind it has already been tried. In 2023 the City of Chilliwack, British Columbia, limited play at courts near homes to 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and told players to use a foam ball after 4 p.m. A member of the local club told CBC News that no foam ball is used for pickleball, so players used the softest plastic ball they had [8]. An equipment rule is only as good as the definition behind it.

What a usable test method has to say

Established

A municipality cannot rely on a quiet standard unless the method behind it is complete and public. The model by-law sets out what that means. Before a council approves any method, clause C.4.1 requires that it be publicly available in full and that it specify:

1. The impact fixture, and how the energy of each strike is controlled, so that every paddle is hit the same way.
2. The reference ball, and how paddles are conditioned before testing.
3. The number of samples, and the rules for retesting.
4. Where the microphone sits, and the acoustic environment of the test.
5. The frequency and time weighting used in the measurement.
6. The pass or fail statistic, and the threshold itself.
7. Measurement uncertainty, and the limits within which two laboratories must agree.

The clause adds a final safeguard: a qualified acoustic practitioner retained by the municipality must confirm in writing that the method is suitable for municipal use. Publishing a method is not enough on its own. Any organization that publishes a method meeting that list, in Canada or elsewhere, gives a council something it can consider approving, and only an approved method opens the route for unlisted products.

A list, a certification and an accreditation are three different things

Established

They are routinely confused, and the difference matters to a solicitor.

• A product list records which products a body has accepted. It says nothing on its own about how they were tested.
• A certification program tests products against defined requirements and allows those that pass to carry a mark.
• Laboratory accreditation confirms that a laboratory is competent to carry out specific tests. In Canada the Standards Council of Canada accredits testing laboratories to ISO/IEC 17025, within a defined scope of tests. It does not accredit sporting goods lists.

A logo on a paddle is not a scope of accreditation. That is why the model by-law requires any test report it accepts to come from a laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 whose accredited scope includes the acoustic method used, and requires the scope itself to be produced.

How a Canadian standard could come about

Established

In Canada, standards are developed by organizations that the Standards Council of Canada accredits for the purpose. CSA Group has held that accreditation since 1973 [6]. New standards work is announced through the Standards Council's notice of intent system, which lets other organizations and the public see what is planned, comment on it, and avoid duplicating it [7].

There are two realistic routes. A national governing body could publish its own register of quiet equipment, together with a complete test method and the thresholds applied under it. Or an accredited standards development organization could develop a Canadian standard for the acoustic performance of pickleball equipment, which laboratories could then be accredited to test against. In our assessment, the first could move faster and the second would carry more weight in procurement.

Either way, the market already exists. Canadian municipalities are building and converting courts and buying equipment for them. A Canadian manufacturer that wanted to design a quieter paddle today would find no published Canadian specification for pickleball equipment noise to design to or to be certified against.

How the model by-law handles it until then

Established

Schedule C of the model by-law is written to work now and to make room for something better. Figures shown in square brackets in the by-law are proposed values for each council to confirm when it adopts the by-law.

• It works today. The American list is recognized in a specific, dated version held on file, so a council knows exactly what it has adopted (clause C.1).
• It does not change behind a council's back. A later version of the list has no effect until it has been recognized in writing, the publishing body and basis of listing are confirmed unchanged, and operators of quiet-play courts have had notice. The model proposes at least 30 days (clause C.5).
• It is fair to players. A player whose paddle is removed from the list keeps a period to replace it rather than becoming an offender overnight. The model proposes 12 months (section 7.7).
• It holds the door open. Council can adopt, by by-law, a register published by Pickleball Canada, by another recognized national governing body, or by any body that publishes both a complete test method and its thresholds (clause C.2). Products not on any list can qualify on an accredited test report, but only after Council has approved a method meeting the checklist above. Until then that route is closed (clauses C.3, C.4 and C.4.1).

The by-law cannot create the Canadian standard. It can hold the chair for one, and make plain to every council that adopts it that the chair is currently empty.

Sources

1. Established USA Pickleball, USA Pickleball announces Quiet Category for pickleball products, 25 September 2023. Link
2. Established Bacon I.C., Dobbs C.E., Allen M.S., Patchett B.D., Characterizing the vibroacoustic response of pickleball paddles through impact testing and laser Doppler vibrometry, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part P, 25 November 2025. Link
3. Measured BAP Acoustics Ltd., Pickleball Noise Assessment, prepared for the BC Recreation and Parks Association and Pickleball BC, December 2022. Link
4. Established USA Pickleball, approved acoustic equipment list. Link
5. Established USA Pickleball, USA Pickleball announces its first certified quiet product, 14 November 2023. Link
6. Established Standards Council of Canada, standards development organization accreditation, CSA Group. Link
7. Established Standards Council of Canada, notices of intent. The linked notice, on measurement of occupational noise exposure, is an example of the process, not a pickleball project. Link
8. Reported CBC News, 'Shrill' noise from Chilliwack pickleball courts forces neighbour to leave city for the summer, 13 May 2023. Link

The finding that no Canadian standard exists is based on searches of the publicly available materials of CSA Group, the Standards Council of Canada and Pickleball Canada as of 24 September 2026. An unsuccessful search cannot prove that none exists. If you know of one, please let us know and this page will be corrected.