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Last year I moved into a detached bungalow, and last winter I had trouble with noise from a clanging pipe. It seemed to stop when the weather got warmer in the Spring. A few days ago it went colder overnight and the clanging has returned. It happens in the early hours which is annoying as I'm still asleep. I tried not running hot water after 6pm and I didn't hear the clanging, however when I start putting the central heating on soon I will need to have it on til 9pm or so, so I will be woken in the night as I was last winter. I'll be calling a plumber soon to help, but can anyone give any advice beforehand so we can locate the problem quicker. Someone suggested it might be water hammer,but I am hearing knocking hours after I've turned everything off. 6 or so hours later. I'm guessing there's a pipe somewhere that is too close to a wall or joist, and as the pipe contracts it knocks the wall. It really is loud too! It's very difficult to locate where the noise is directly coming from. There is a radiator in the bedroom, against an outside wall so this seems to be the best place to start.Unfortunately I've bought a bungalow with no floorboards, but chipboard instead, so not easy to remove. I could end up paying someone to cut out several sections of chipboard. Has anyone heard of this noisy pipe problem, and does anyone have any advice in locating the likeliest places that I need to look at? Many thanks.
 
Poorly installed system pipework is the most likely cause as it is at its worst on heat up, no other option but to cut the floor up and clip the pipe, ease the tight spots add hair felt between the joist and pipework to avoid creaking and banging . Cheers kop
 
Thanks for the reply. It's strange as I don't hear anything when I turn the hot water on with my convention boiler. I only hear clanging pipes a few hours after I've turned the hot water off. It is very loud, and sounds like a pipe whacking against a wall. I heard it last winter, then I didn't hear it during the summer, and now it's returned when the weather turned colder recently. I'm sure the plumber will know, but where would be the best place to cut the chipboard floor up. Would you say around the pipes leading to the radiators. There are 6 altogether, so that's quite a bit of floor to remove. I did have a new bathroom installed last Oct, including a towel rail which the plumber connected to pipes already there.The bathroom is tiled so accessing the towel rail will be quite damaging. I did have a new Gas fire fitted in the lounge at the same time, and I did hear clanging pipes a couple of hours after the fire was turned off, though I wouldn't have thought gas pipes would expand and contract like water pipes. Thanks for your help.
 
Hi Richie
What boiler do you have?
Do you have a boiler and cylinder?
Is the boiler installed in the loft?

Have all of your rads got trv's fitted?

You may need an auto bypass valve fitted.
If your boiler had fired up on a cold night and all the trv's are closed this could cause the banging. A six rad system will not have enough pipework to allow for the heat to disapate especially if well lagged. The trv's may also not be bi-directional.
Get a good heating engineers to have a look.
 
Hi Richie
What boiler do you have?
Do you have a boiler and cylinder?
Is the boiler installed in the loft?

Have all of your rads got trv's fitted?

You may need an auto bypass valve fitted.
If your boiler had fired up on a cold night and all the trv's are closed this could cause the banging. A six rad system will not have enough pipework to allow for the heat to disapate especially if well lagged. The trv's may also not be bi-directional.
Get a good heating engineers to have a look.
Thanks for the reply. Yes all the rads had trv's fitted a year ago except the towel rail in the bathroom, and the small rad in the hall. I have a convention boiler with tank, rather than a combi. Boiler is in the kitchen. I switch everything off so as nothing will fire up in the night, yet I hear very loud clanging which happpens hours after I've used the hot water. This wakes me up so I'm hoping I can sort this out. Also, I haven't started putting the central heating on yet, so it seems strange that I'm hearing this. If I don't run hot water after 6pm I don't hear any noise during the night. When I start putting the heating on soon though,there will be a lot of noise like last winter.
 
I don't think it's anything to do with heating if heating is off then pipes shouldn't magically clonk, it's more likely through the cold water mains especially if next door is on same supply and hamer echoes through pipework
 
Unless u have a leak in system and its topping itself up therefor cold water being used ,
 
I don't think it's anything to do with heating if heating is off then pipes shouldn't magically clonk, it's more likely through the cold water mains especially if next door is on same supply and hamer echoes through pipework
Thanks for the reply. My bungalow is detached so I thought I didn't share my water supply. That being said my bungalow was built about 20 years after the houses on either side, so I'm not sure if my pipework isn't piggybacked off my neighbours. I have heard the term water hammer but I don't know if this is what I'm hearing. I didn't hear a thing from May to Sept, but a few days ago when it got colder the banging pipes has returned. My Dad knows a good plumber so I'll ask him to call round. The noise seems to come from all over,so I'm not sure how he will solve this. I don't know if lagging the pipework and clipping it in place will help.
 
... clipping and insulating although is better than no clips n insulating only hides a noise it won't fix what's causing the problem
 
Last year I moved into a detached bungalow, and last winter I had trouble with noise from a clanging pipe. It seemed to stop when the weather got warmer in the Spring. A few days ago it went colder overnight and the clanging has returned. It happens in the early hours which is annoying as I'm still asleep. I tried not running hot water after 6pm and I didn't hear the clanging, however when I start putting the central heating on soon I will need to have it on til 9pm or so, so I will be woken in the night as I was last winter. I'll be calling a plumber soon to help, but can anyone give any advice beforehand so we can locate the problem quicker. Someone suggested it might be water hammer,but I am hearing knocking hours after I've turned everything off. 6 or so hours later. I'm guessing there's a pipe somewhere that is too close to a wall or joist, and as the pipe contracts it knocks the wall. It really is loud too! It's very difficult to locate where the noise is directly coming from. There is a radiator in the bedroom, against an outside wall so this seems to be the best place to start.Unfortunately I've bought a bungalow with no floorboards, but chipboard instead, so not easy to remove. I could end up paying someone to cut out several sections of chipboard. Has anyone heard of this noisy pipe problem, and does anyone have any advice in locating the likeliest places that I need to look at? Many thanks.
It you do have to go under the floor as its chip board there is only one safe way of doing it. Dont bother with saws circular or jig. Get a claw hammer and bash your way in with a small hole Then locate pipe and carefully open a space around it back to the joists, fix pipe and then slot in new piece of chippy board cut to size. If there is a gap around edge make up some cocky (car body filler) and trowel into gap. easy no split pipes and quite theraputic throw scrap on fire all done
 
It you do have to go under the floor as its chip board there is only one safe way of doing it. Dont bother with saws circular or jig. Get a claw hammer and bash your way in with a small hole Then locate pipe and carefully open a space around it back to the joists, fix pipe and then slot in new piece of chippy board cut to size. If there is a gap around edge make up some cocky (car body filler) and trowel into gap. easy no split pipes and quite theraputic throw scrap on fire all done
A good tip I have found in the past is setting your depth gage to roughly half the thickness of the boards then prising the boards up with a long flat headed screwdriver and swan bar. Won’t work on thick boards though. A lot of the time I just use a circular saw and multi tool to cut floorboards and haven’t gone though anything yet, just remember to take your time and try and workout where pipes could be under there.
 
Thanks for all the replies. A new member (Chewit) said 6 rads may not be enough to dissipate heat. This got me thinking. I've never liked heat in the bedroom. I find a cooler bedroom easier to sleep, so I have always kept the bedroom rads turned off most of the time. This didn't cause problems in my last 2 homes,both houses. I moved into a 2 bed bungalow last year and only have 6 rads. I haven't started putting the central heating on yet,but last night I turned the trv's up from 0 to about 3. I only heard a very faint sound last night. Such a difference to the loud clanging I had been hearing. Is it best not to lower any rads to 0. I'm thinking maybe the pressure in the pipes met a dead end in the bedrooms and caused the loud clanging I was hearing. I'm going to leave the tvr's about halfway up from now on and hopefully this will keep dissipating any pressure in the pipes. Has anyone heard of this problem before?Thanks.
 
Thanks for all the replies. A new member (Chewit) said 6 rads may not be enough to dissipate heat. This got me thinking. I've never liked heat in the bedroom. I find a cooler bedroom easier to sleep, so I have always kept the bedroom rads turned off most of the time. This didn't cause problems in my last 2 homes,both houses. I moved into a 2 bed bungalow last year and only have 6 rads. I haven't started putting the central heating on yet,but last night I turned the trv's up from 0 to about 3. I only heard a very faint sound last night. Such a difference to the loud clanging I had been hearing. Is it best not to lower any rads to 0. I'm thinking maybe the pressure in the pipes met a dead end in the bedrooms and caused the loud clanging I was hearing. I'm going to leave the tvr's about halfway up from now on and hopefully this will keep dissipating any pressure in the pipes. Has anyone heard of this problem before?Thanks.
well done chewit
 
Things are no better after all. I turned the fire on last night for the first time since the spring which I turned off about 10pm. I later ran a sinkful of hot water about 11pm. 4am I was woken by loud clanging! I've no idea what's causing it. I did ask a heating engineer who doubted it was anything to do with pipework as I'm hearing it hours later and nothing is turned on during the night. He said he would call round but there is a call out charge and he advised identifying where the problem is first to save time wasting. I've no idea what it is? Where do I even start? I also live alone in a detached bungalow so it's not neighbours waking me. I've just read about pressure hammer. Could it be this? I'll try turning the water supply off and draining all outlets which I read can resettle the system,but as I'm hearing all this loud noise some 5 hours after I've done anything, I can't understand it. I may never get to the bottom of this. Has anyone heard of a similar problem and does anyone have any advice? Many thanks.
 

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