Central Heating Noise

Mo,

Nip to the local plumbers merchants and buy a couple of rolls of "hair felt" - cost at the time was less than a tenner.

Cut this as needed and slip around the pipes where they are touching the floor joists (or on top of the pipes if the floorboards are resting on them) use it also if the central heating pump or pipes are touching walls etc - time taken to lift and relay carpets, lift and relay boards, wrap the pipes as needed and and a few other jobs was around a days work, less the frequent tea breaks that I'm rather prone to take.

I did this around 15 years ago in my house and it has cured the heating noise by around 98% (guestimate for the pedants here, but it's a damn site quieter) - still get the odd bolier noise or air in radiator noises 'creeping' through now and again, but that's intermittent, mostly resolvable or bearable. [1]

As a matter of interest, I'd preveiously tried several other method to clip or raise the pipes to little or no effect and hair felt was the last (and most successful) plan.

Cash

I have used cut up pieces of supermarket Value pot-washing sponges for small quantities of pipe packing.

Owain

"Cash" wrote in

Thanks

I will look into this next week

Did you pack it really tight so the pipe couldnt move at all (but presumably it can still expand a little?

presumably its heat resistant forever too?

- Mo

The pipe needs to be free to move, normally along it's length as that is the direction of greatest expansion. The ticks, clicks, bangs are caused by the pipe being held firm and eventually the force from the suddenly overcoming the friction, sticking again, repeat.

In long pipe lengths put in 250mm-300mm of plastic pipe to absorb expansion.

If the pipes are touching each other you will get this problem.

Mr Pounder

Mo,

No, I simply slipped the stuff loosely around the pipe[s] - don't restrict the pipes, just let it slide over the felt when they expand and contract during normal movement.

No problems there - as I said, I did it around 15 years ago and the stuff is still working nicely - even surviving a change of boiler and a CH system flush (both by British gas, with around 5 years between renewal and flushing).

Cash

"Cash" wrote in

ahh OK

Presumably then if pipes are not touching eachother the noise is oming from the pipes ''rubbing' on the joists as opposed the the sound of them actually expanding?

Did you do every single joist the pipes touched?

That's right.

I would say *yes* to that (where it was possible, and some of mine are inaccessible for a number of reasons) - along with any pipes that touched walls etc, even down to checking where the radiator tails disappeared under the floorboards.

In that situation where radiator tails were touching boards, I simply removed the board and eased the 'hole' for the tail, or nudged the tails away by just slackening the radiator valve and pushing the them slightly (where possible, and great care must be taken in doing so).

Cash