Water pipe "shaking"

[Mantorok]

Hi

The mains feed into my water tank in the loft recently started to shake like mad when filling up, I've watched it gradually start to fill up then when it gets to a certain point the whole pipe shakes like crazy and this causes the float to jump up and down causing the water to splutter into the tank - this lasts around 2 minutes before calming down.

2 things I did before this started happening a) Fitted bathroom sink and b) removed radiator from the bathroom - thing is, I can't see how they would have an effect on the mains feed into the tank!!

Any ideas?

Thanks Kev

[Andrew Gabriel]

Most likely disturbed the rigidity of the feed pipe, even just a minute amount. Another possibility is if you truned the water off and now it's back on, the flow through the main stop c*ck might be slightly different.

Easiest fix is probably to brace the pipework better to something more solid. You could test this simply by grabbing hold of the pipe and check this stops the vibration. The brace doesn't need to be rock solid, but more solid than the pipe itself. I did this with a tank, and it consists of a piece of 1x1 timber with a pipe clip on the end, just wedged at the other end inbetween the timbers supporting the tank -- that was enough to stop it.

Another fix would be to replace the ball valve with a Fluidmaster one.

[Mantorok]

Thanks, I did consider this as it seemed like the easiest option, I did hold the pipe and it was enough to stop it shaking, one more thing I need to check is if the stop-c*ck on the mains has been fully opened, I'm suspecting it might not be.

Kev

[shazzbat]

Fully open and back half a turn. This prevents it becoming jammed in the fully on position.

Steve

[Mantorok]

Yeah I did fall into that trap once, thanks.

Kev

[shazzbat]

SNIP

Me too. :-((

And when the plumber came to change the stopcock he couldn't turn off the one out on the front path. So the water Co had to come and change that one first, then they flooded the street because they thought they'd turned off the supply but it was on a ring main arrangement, then when they put it all back together we had every cold tap in the house spitting gravel and the bog cisterns got jammed. Finally the plumber came back, changed the stopcock, but then I had to change all the tap washers because of the grit embedded in them making them drip.

And all I had intended to do in the first place was change a tap washer :-)) Got there in the end though.

Steve.

[Stickems.]

It is more likely that closing the stop c*ck a little will cut out the vibrations.

[Mantorok]

Sounds like fun and games!! I haven't come across a plumbing job that is

100% straightforward yet, you just never know what could end up going wrong, and something usually does....

Kev

[Mackem]

Yes, in plumbing there's no such thing as a five minute job, as I've found out many a time.