Water pipes screaming

[pwhittle]

Our home is almost 30 years old. We have been here 6 years.

In the last 12 months we have an intermittent screaming from the water pipes. It will start randomly and continue for 1-3 minutes. The noise seems to be coming from all over one end of the house on the main and basement levels

I can feel it as a vibration on the hot water pipes to some of the faucets. No vibration on the cold pipes,

This happens when there is no water running, normally at night with no trigger, and sometimes right after a shower is taken.

If you open either hot or cold faucet, it stops until you shut it off when it starts again. It eventually stops by itself.

Most of the pipes are copper, with some Pex added 10-12 years ago when the basement was built out. During the build out, the traditional water heater was replaced with two instant on water heaters mounted on the outside of the house, with new hot lines fished back to the original location of the water heater for distribution to the house.

I have replaced the toilet fill mechanisms.

What should I try next?


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[buzzworth]

City water or pump and expansion tank ?

 

[theundermount]

do you have a pressure regulator coming in from the city line?

 

[dfiler2]

I had the same issue about a year ago and finally traced it down to a faucet. You say the shower faucet seems to start it, is that faucet leaking at all? My bath vanity faucet dripped a little and replacing that one stopped the issue. I would also have to describe it as screaming, I think it has to do with the way the valve is made.

 

[samss]

Have you checked the water heater tp valve?

 

[stokefire7]

Cul de sac ?

 

[Kaizen]

Do you have a boiler with automatic fill?

Start shutting off shutoffs when it happens to isolate where it is coming from. Then the individual faucets. As said above focus on leakers


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[pwhittle]

do you have a pressure regulator coming in from the city line?

Yes. Outside pressure is 120psi. I am not sure on inside pressure, but will try to measure it.

Paul


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[pwhittle]

I had the same issue about a year ago and finally traced it down to a faucet. You say the shower faucet seems to start it, is that faucet leaking at all? My bath vanity faucet dripped a little and replacing that one stopped the issue. I would also have to describe it as screaming, I think it has to do with the way the valve is made.

I have not seen any leaking faucets, but I will look.

Paul


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[pwhittle]

Have you checked the water heater tp valve?

It was replaced a couple years ago as it was leaking. I will check it next time it screams.

Thx

Paul


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[pwhittle]

Cul de sac ?

Yes. How did you know?

Paul


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[pwhittle]

Do you have a boiler with automatic fill?

Start shutting off shutoffs when it happens to isolate where it is coming from. Then the individual faucets. As said above focus on leakers


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No boiler. Just two instant on gas water heaters

Thx

Paul


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[pizza]

i would guess it's a valve that's deteriorating. rubber washer or something inside is resonating when water flows, and this sends acoustic energy throughout the plumbing. can be really loud and hard to localize. it can present as a loud buzzing noise. sometimes, the valve's condition means there's intermittent leaking, and this is why the noise can be intermittent and start/stop on its own without you doing anything to the valve.

usually though, you notice a pattern when you use a certain fixture; you'd notice the noise when you use the toilet or sink in question. this makes me think that it's a valve that isn't on a fixture. so if it's a valve at all, it's probably one that you don't manually interact with often.

edit: since it happens after you take a shower, i suspect it's the shower valve. maybe it only resonates when it's just leaking a bit, and maybe after using it, it leaks for a couple minutes. and then other times like the middle of the night, maybe it's leaking and buzzing on its own.

the usual solution is to replace or rebuild the valve.

otherwise, maybe installing water hammer arrestors could help too?

 

[stokefire7]

Yes. How did you know?

Paul


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You're getting water hammer from the municipal distribution. A couple things.
Pressure regulator would serve you well. Start at 50 lbs. To stop the pressure surges , you need a spring check valve in your service.
Meter (assuming it's in your house ) , pressure reducing valve (I have gauges for inlet and outlet on mine), spring check.

 

[acer66]

Pressure valves go bad, around here it starts after about 5 years according to my trusted plumber.

 

[Innovate1]

I had a repeated bang-bang-bang start happening occasionally. Like repeated water hammer a couple times a second. Seemed to happen for no apparent reason - we hadn't just opened or closed any valves. I think it was somehow related to a long pipe from the main - about 500 feet. My guess was the pressure wave was reflected back and forth along the pipe. I put an expansion tank right were the line comes into the house and the problem stopped. We already had expansion tanks on the water heaters but they were some distance from the incoming pipe. Sounds sort of like your issue.

 

[pwhittle]

You're getting water hammer from the municipal distribution. A couple things.

Pressure regulator would serve you well. Start at 50 lbs. To stop the pressure surges , you need a spring check valve in your service.

There is a whole house pressure regulator. I’ll try to measure the pressure inside.

Would that be consistent with it only being on the hot water side?

Thx

Paul




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[larry4406]

I had a toilet fill valve that would seep ever so slightly and would create a singing high pitch sound that could be heard throughout the house and it would finally quit. Drove me nuts till I found it. I could not find out any sort of pattern that triggered it. Replaced it and all good.

 

[stokefire7]

There is a whole house pressure regulator. I’ll try to measure the pressure inside.

Would that be consistent with it only being on the hot water side?

Thx

Paul




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Just a guess but your service comes in, goes up and straight to the heaters on the back of the outside wall.

 

[pwhittle]

Just a guess but your service comes in, goes up and straight to the heaters on the back of the outside wall.

The water heaters are a retrofit when the basement was built out and they are after the pressure regulator.

The screaming started last night and the suspect water heater is outside our bedroom. I was able to confirm the noise is originating from there last night.

I’ll replace the pressure valve (again) and see if that resolves the issue.

Thx acer96 and samss for suggesting this. Thx to all for your input.

I will also measure the inside water pressure.

Paul


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[pwhittle]

I measured the pressure and it is 120psi+ at the water heaters and the outside hose bibs and the washing machine, so my pressure regulator is misadjusted or needs replacing.

I also found the line to the septic tank has come loose, so a plumber is in my near future.

Thx to all who answered.

Paul


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[larry4406]

I measured the pressure and it is 120psi+ at the water heaters and the outside hose bibs and the washing machine, so my pressure regulator is misadjusted or needs replacing.

I also found the line to the septic tank has come loose, so a plumber is in my near future.

Thx to all who answered.

Paul


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Yikes!

 

[pwhittle]

All fixed.

I found a great local plumber who replaced the broken 4” sewer line as it exited the house, installed a clean out on the new pipe so I can dump our motorhome when we get home, and replaced my Pressure Reducing Valve.

He also let me watch and learn. I appreciated the education.

Thanks to all who contributed to my issues.

Paul


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[58Yeoman]

Glad you got it all straightened out.

 

[frank001]

do you have a pressure regulator coming in from the city line?

^^^^^^This^^^^^^

 

[Jeepster04]

Did the pressure not seem insane with 120psi? I've got 60psi and I've always thought it was pretty good. I bet it was nice washing a car!

I've got my pressure regulator maxed out.

 

[theundermount]

glad you got it fixed!

 

[pwhittle]

Did the pressure not seem insane with 120psi? I've got 60psi and I've always thought it was pretty good. I bet it was nice washing a car!

I've got my pressure regulator maxed out.

TBH, I did not notice much of a difference after the PRV was replaced.

I do need to check the water pressure again past the PRV.

The house was plumber to have one external spigot at street pressure. I used to have a hard time filling the water tank on our RV as it would trip the pressure valve.

Paul


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[Jackfre]

Something else to consider on systems. I was called out on a tankless that was "ghost" firing, meaning taht with no faucets in the building running either H or C the unit would cycle for about 5 seconds and then shut down. The building had very high pressures like yours. It turned out that the building also did not have a back flow preventer. This problem only occurred in the day time. It was in a commercial area. turns out that the higher day time flows in the street mains would create a negative pressure in the building. Essentially it was drawing the water back from the building. Whenever the main flows would moderate the pressure in the building would equalize and the water heater would see flow and pre-purge giving the ghost flow.

 

[brownbagg]

you need an anti hammer valve at the water heater or washing machine.