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Our pipework is getting noisier and noisier. It hammers intermittently during the day with no obvious trigger. It is also really bad, to the point of waking us up, at 0330, and I mean almost exactly 0330 every morning. We don't have anything timed to come on then. The hot water is all off before midnight.
We have changed the ball valve and checked for any obvious loosening in the pipes but the don't feel loose anywhere.
The pipework has never been silent but things have only really got bad over the last month or so.
Any ideas, don't have a lot of spare cash, so would like to avoid a plumber if possible. Thanks for any help.
Have you let the air out of the radiators? Unscrew the screw at the top and air will come out, once the water starts to leak out, close the screw. repeat for all radiators
Sorry,yes we have bled all the radiators and to be honest we haven't needed the heating on for a few weeks.
With the exact timing that does sound like a pump or washing machine on timer coming on.
Have you tried a total power off of heating and hot water overnight?
How do you stop the noise?
Can you locate where it's coming from - it could be solved by some more pipe clips and attachments to stop the movement.
Water hammer is related to water pressure and water pressure variation.
Water pressure variation is created by taps, cisterns and basically anything that uses water. Our Washing Machine causes Water hammer almost everytime it uses the water. It's difficult to control.
Water pressure can be regulated, to some extent, by the Stopcock. Turning the Stopcock up or down (increasing or reducing the pressure drop across the Stopcock when water flows) can sometimes stop Water hammer.
Worth a try!
Water pressure can be regulated, to some extent, by the Stopcock. Turning the Stopcock up or down (increasing or reducing the pressure drop across the Stopcock when water flows) can sometimes stop Water hammer.
This. After 2 years of silence we suddenly started getting water hammer. Plummer just turned the stopcock towards off by 1/4 turn to reduce the flow slightly and the problem disappeared.
You cannot alter pressure with a stop cock, only flow.
Pressure in the mains can increase significantly at night due to low overall demand on the system.
I have had 2 cases in recent years of similar noise issues which turned out to be the kitchen sink tap and I think the valves vibrating in the tap itself. Generally tracking this sort of problem down becomes trial and error. Float operated valves in toilets or cisterns would be the first place to look.
Good luck!
Float operated valves in toilets or cisterns would be the first place to look.
This, but on the water tank made the biggest difference to us - we started getting horrendous pipe knocking, completely out of the blue and without anything changing / any plumbing work being done or new appliances added. Changing the valve and float on our cold water tank in the loft seemed to fix it (I need to do the same with the expansion tank as it is now happening very occasionally again but it's not with that valve).
You cannot alter pressure with a stop cock, only flow.
In a static system, yes. If there's flow, closing the valve a bit will increase pressure drop across it.
By a very small amount possibly, there will be more difference bepending on useage
You can get water hammer arrestors which have a compressed air chamber to absorb the waves of high pressure and smooth things out a bit.
Also, I thought most water companies dropped the pressure at night to reduce leaks, maybe not in your area though....
It is also really bad, to the point of waking us up, at 0330, and I mean almost exactly 0330 every morning. We don’t have anything timed to come on then.
Any large industrial places locally that would either start or stop using large volumes of mains water around that time on a night shift when there's little variation in demand in the rest of the system to mask the change?
We had a progressively worsening, seemingly random issue which was linked to the cistern on the toilet. The hammer would come when the cistern refilled so could be 5 minutes after they had left the room. But other use of water elsewhere in the house would also make the shitty valve "bounce" causing the same noise, as could someone walking across the right bit of the floor!
The correct solution is obviously to replace the valve, probably fix the pipes better (although the feed to that valve is via one of those flexy hoses). In fact, I just turned the isolator valve for the cistern until it was almost closed (1/4 turn is fully open so probably 1/16th open) it takes about 1 minute longer to fill the cistern and its v. slightly noisier doing it, but has removed about 90% of the water hammer effect. I had been planning to fit the water hammer arrestor mentioned above but this worked well enough for me.
timidwheeler
...Any ideas, don’t have a lot of spare cash, so would like to avoid a plumber if possible.
Old Oz trick.
Get the hydrolastic suspension unit from an old Mini or BMC/Leyland car and connect it into your plumbing with a T-junction.
The extra pressure just gets dissipated expanding it. You can watch it pulsing when there's water hammer occurrences. 🙂
Obviously clean the thing out properly first!
Old Oz trick.
Hide behind a curtain.
Hide behind a curtain.
bravo.
Are you city/town or out in the country?
I bet it's a toilet that is slightly leaking past the flush valve, which at 3.30 drops low enough to cause the fill to kick in momentarily. I'm going to guess it happens nearly exactly the same time every morning because the last time the toilet is flushed is fairly consistent the evening before.
If the general pipe noise you have through the day hasn't got any worse, then I suspect it's not pipework that has become loose. I get a lot a water hammer in my house, have 1 mini hammer arrester on the washing machine supply, a mechanical arrestor on the hot water supply from the combi and an air diaphragm type on the cold mains.. it's still not silent!
Worth checking your water pressure though, get a gauge off eBay/Amazon for £10 or so. They hook up to an outside tap point, if your pressure is above about 3bar it might be worth fitting a PRV on your supply.
About a year ago I got the plumbers out over pipes hammering. They looked about thoroughly for an hour, nothing. It turned out to be an issue with next door's plumbing but it played through my pipes like a p poor opera.
Lots of very useful advice there, cheers. We are in a town. It's fairly residential round here, not much industry. Sadly I'm sure its our pipes not next doors.
Check the toilets are not leaking and refilling by putting toilet paper on the back of the toilet bowl...if the porcelain is wet the cistern is leaking. Never used to get this problem with the old syphon toilet flushes, you knew when they were worn out as you have to pump the handle to get the flush going!
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