Watter Hammer & noisy pipes

I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Ann

Reply to
amehta10
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More description of the noise and exactly when it happens. Does the bang (ing) occur as a faucet is opened? Or when closing? How long does it last?

Water hammer happens when a faucet is closed rapidly, abruptly stopping the flow. I'm not certain that is what you are experiencing.

Jim

Reply to
Speedy Jim

Jim,

Thanks for your quick reply. It happens when close the faucet.

Reply to
armmar91

and its banging noise

Reply to
armmar91

I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

The noise comes when we close the faucet and it loud ban

Thanks Ann

Reply to
armmar91

If you hear a loud "BAN", your landlord has most likely banned you from this home. You probably did not pay your rent. LEAVE NOW - YOU'RE BANNED !!!!

By the way. Your landlord is probably in the basement banging on the pipes. He wants you out of there....... LEAVE NOW !!!!!

Reply to
HammerBammer

Since you are on city water, I would next investigate whether the pressure is especially high. Anything over 80 psi would be excessive. Installation of a PRV (regulator) and expansion tank could relieve that.

You might ask close-by neighbors whether they are having similar problems.

Jim

Reply to
Speedy Jim

with high water pressure, turning the water off suddenly, would create a shock wave to go through the pipes, making a rattle, or even your "bang"

Reply to
minder

This sentence is why Jim didn't know what you meant.

I got water hammer when I replaced the rubber hoses to my clothes washer, one of which had burst, with woven steel covered water hoses.

The rubber water hoses had acted as shock absorbers for the water when I turned off faucets, and when the washer shut its valves.

I don't think you need all over. Just one set maybe. I bought 2 things probably at home depot that are about 4 or 5 inches long, and I put them where it was easiest, between the washing machine faucets and the washing machine hoses. Took 20 or 30 minutes.

But before you do this, you should consider the whole washing machine issue. The hoses burst for lots of people, and the flooding is always bad and can be disastrous. The instructions with the washer say to turn the washer off whenever you are not using it. But I think most people don't. If you install the kind of water hammer preventer I just suggested, as I did it, turning off the washing machine water will disconnect them.

So you need to think about a comprehensive solution.

Reply to
mm

If a website suggeted this, it must have been more about emptying the sytem than flushing it.

Some places have vertical, dead-end pipes attached some place, which stick up and are filled with air, not water. Eventually iiuc the air will dissolve into the water, and water will fill the pipe. This takes years but I have no idea how many years.

If you have these, and you empty the system and give it time for these pipes to empty also, when you refill the pipes, they should be good again.

A) You have to have them for this to work. B) They have to be able to empty. Thin pipes would empty slowly, sort of like ketchup doesn't want to come out of the bottle, or a full can of cranberry sauce, but if they use 1/2 or 3/4 inch pipe, I don't know how much extra time it takes. In addtion to the time it takes the pipes just beneath them to empty.

Reply to
mm

Most water hammer is from the lack of air in the lines. I don't know if they piped air chambers in the system. The common way I've seen it done is to pipe a T at your supply's at you sinks & lavi's then put a piece of pipe about 12" facing up in the wall with a cap on it. this traps air. I read your about shutting off the main and closing all faucets. What you want to do is drain all the water from the system open every valve find the lowest fixture let it all drain. Then recharge the system. ( I.m not sure if that's what you did already ) If they did pipe air chambers in the house over time the water absorbs the air. Have you tried shutting off the water slowing?

Reply to
Sacramento Dave

So far, so good!

Mine would have been spectacular if I hadn't heard the water running when I woke up. It burst sometime that night, and it seemed like it was only a half hour or less. I can only guess if I had left for work, or been gone for a weekend, or a month.

BEcause of all the leaks etc. I finally glued a slat, maybe 1/2 inch high in the doorway between the laundry room and the family room. None of the floods so far have been higher than that and the sump pump would probably get it before it could go higher.

Well, it seems to me that it should last a lot longer, but how much longer is longer than 10 years.

It seems to me the water hammer thing shows/proves, that the rubber hoses would swell when the water was turned off, and that meant that the side of the hose was being stretched, dozens of times a day. And I'm the only one who lives here. A second person would almost double that, etc. Some times they shut off quicker than others, so it stretched more than others, but still total maybe 10,000 times a year.

Now the metal keeps it from stretching more than a certain amount, maybe very little if the metal is tight, and mostly it just compresses the side of the rubber hose, all sides. But you could have hundreds of people walking on a rubber mat all day for a long time before it would wear through, and that's with abrasive shoe soles, not smooth water.

Don't forget, I'm not the smartest guy in town. If you followed me around, you'd know that for sure.

This is all a guess. Surely someone actually knows how long the average metal clad hose lasts.

Reply to
mm

I missed the word "closing". Did you first open all the faucets and let them all stay open at the same time until nothing dripped out.

If you only open one faucet for example, while the main valve is closed, not too much will drip out because there is little way for air to get into the system. If you open the highest faucet in the house at the same time, that will help a lot, and if you have someone watching a lower faucet at the same time, I think you should see that.

That still leaves water in the pipes from the main valve to the first branch, but I think that will drain out eventually. Just wait until the water stops dripping.

Then there is the hot water. I wonder if you can just open the faucents and don't have to drain the tank. It would depend on whether the T thing with the pipe pointing up was before or after the water heater. I don't have one so I don't know.

Anyone nearby with a house like yours without a finished laundry room?

My laundry room, and that is where the water comes in and spreads out, is not finished so I'm pretty sure I don't have these things. You may not either, but otoh, if you didn't change your hoses to metal ones or do anything else to create water hammer, maybe you do.

Reply to
mm

But it's not called a water arrestor, I don't think. What is it called?

Reply to
mm

The little ones I bought have flexible rubber, I think, to keep the air from dissolving into the water, but eventually the rubber will break and since the things I bought are only 4 or 5 inches long and thinner than most pipes, the air will get absorbed even quicker, once it starts.

It's been about 10 or 12 years. So far so good. Again, I live alone so this and many things last longer.

Reply to
mm

It is an accumulator. It might have different commercial names, but technically it's an accumulator. If you put one at each faucet that causes pipe banging, the pipe banging will go away. Not sure if it's worth the money, it might be easier to identify the pipe that is actually banging and put the accumulator between that and the faucets if possible. An accumulator performs a similar function to filter capacitors in a power supply in that it maintains a more constant pressure when there are transient spikes in load. It prevents the current surge that causes pipe banging.

Reply to
Ook

water hammer arrestor

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Reply to
Steve Barker

I might mention that in industrial/commercial applications, you will find pipes with springs at the bends to absorve the movement caused by sudden changes in water flow. You don't usually find that in residential applications. However, I think better builders will be carefull to secure the pipes at bends to prevent pipe banging. Doesn't mean the pipes won't come loose in time.

Reply to
Ook

All you need is a water hammer suppressor. I happen to have one. Fifty bucks and it's yours. Money in small unmarked bills, please.

Or, your own water hammer supressors can be made by you. All it involves is installing a vertical piece of water pipe/copper tubing/PVC/whatever into your existing lines at one or more places in your house. The highest point is a good starting place, and if it doesn't solve the problem, add them on lower floors/points. They can be installed by simply cutting the lines and installing compression fittings or glue in PVC. All they are is a vertical of at least a foot with a cap on top. Air accumulates over the time, or the process can be speeded up by turning off the house water, opening the lines for a couple of minutes, closing the faucets, and turning on the water. The air can never escape.

When a shock of water hits the vertical column of air, the air compresses, taking the hammer noise out.

If you don't want the water hammer supressor that I am selling, could you send me fifty bucks anyway for giving you the solution?

I think this will work for "watter", too.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

Is it available for download, perhaps at a lower price?

I just got a new hardware modem, and I'm looking forward to using it.

If it works well, I'm going to buy a food and liquor modem.

Reply to
mm

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