Humming pipes All aspects of plumbing questions and answers, help, tips and information

[s2eh]

Hello

Can someone help? Whenever a toilet, tap or shower is turned in in our house, shortly after turning it off, a loud humming noise can be heard (all ove the house) which gradually dies away. It can be stopped by turning another tap on for a while.

I have drained the cold water tank in the loft and the cold water system, which worked for a while, but the noise is back again with a vengence.

It happens whether it is the hot or cold water that is turned on. I live in a house built 7 years ago and we are the only occupants from new.

I have B Gas plumbing cover, but don't know whether this is covered or not.

Any ideas to help please?

[thedoctor]

Take a look at the Diydoctor projects page and go to the noisy pipes project. The problem could be waht is called water hammer.

[simon_the_gas_man]

one option could be a worn washer on your stop tap. When they ware out they can flap about causing this noise. Get your local plumber to change the stop tap.

Before that try and reduce the pressure the cold comes in through your stop tap, by backing it off a few turns.

Simon

[thedoctor]

MANY OF THE ANSWERS TO YOUR POSTS CAN BE FOUND, WITH DIAGRAMS, IN THE DIYDOCTOR PROJECTS SECTION. CLICK HERE www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects.htm

[dazcm]

I have a similar problem (std. hot water system; cold tank in loft, hot tank in airing cupboard), but it [u]only[/u] occurs after I draw hot water.

The humming (definately not a banging) starts at the point when the hot water tank fill shuts off, and you can feel all the cold water pipes in the house vibrating v. quickly. This continues for several minutes. I can solve the problem by reducing the cold water pressure by turning the main stop tap down, but I have to reduce the pressure to a trickle to have any effect.

Rather than the washer on the main stop tap, could it be the washer on the stop valve on the cold water tank fill? It also seems worse in the middle of the summer, which makes me think the problem is in the loft - something expanding after being baked in the sun all day??

If anyone has any other bright ideas, I'd appreciate it immensely.

Darren

[barnsleybill]

I am 99% certain that your problem is down to a worn rubber diaphragm on your float valve (on your cold water cistern)
These can become stretched/hardened and cause an unbelievable amount of noise as the pressure of the incoming water starts up a vibration in the pipework as it forces its way past the diaphragm.
The diaphragm itself may still function OK (ie there is no overflow problem) but its a fair bet it will be on the way out.
Just change the diaphragm and it should cure the problem.
Good news is that it takes about ten minutes and costs about 60p!!

[andy beale]

Hi There, Been reading your comments regarding cold water problems and i have a simlilar problem my self that i can't work out.

After about 2 minutes of running a luke warm bath for our baby. i,e equal cold / hot water, we getting a massive banging noise through the pipes. If you turn the cold tap back on the noise goes. You have to wait about 30 seconds until the noise goes. We have a conventional system ourselves, cold water tank in the loft etc. It only happens with a bath though, the shower using the same taps id fine, i guess this is because the cold is not on full.

Any further help please??