In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Options
Weird Plumbing Problem or Poltergeist Infestation?
allen griggs
Member Posts: 35,242 ✭✭✭✭
We have a very nice old house in Atlanta, which we have been renting out for some years. The tenants moved out a month ago, and now the house is vacant. We are doing some work on it.
This is a two story house with a full basement, built in 1940.
Here is where the plumbing gets weird.
The cold water supply for the entire house goes, initially, to the bathroom on the top floor.
In other words, the water to the washing machine, which is in the basement, first goes through the bathroom on the top floor.
Likewise, there is a bathroom on the first floor, and its water goes initially through that second floor bathroom.
This house was built by General Gillem, whom Fort Gillem in Atlanta was named after, and he didn't want his shower, in that second floor bathroom, to get red hot if someone flushed a toilet.
So, anytime you run a faucet in the house, you can hear the sound of water running in that living room wall downstairs, as the water heads up through the wall to go to that second floor bathroom.
What is weird is, if you flush a toilet, the noise is really loud.
You can hear the sound of water running through the pipe, in the living room wall, but you also hear a loud noise, sounds like the neighbor is running a carpet cleaning machine on the other side of that wall.
This loud sound is made only when a toilet is refilling, it does not occur when you run a faucet.
We have never noticed this sound being so noisy before. I am sure that part of the problem is the empty house, acting like a big echo chamber. Sofas and rugs absorb a lot of sound.
Any expert plumbers who can tell me what this problem is, and how to fix it?
This is a two story house with a full basement, built in 1940.
Here is where the plumbing gets weird.
The cold water supply for the entire house goes, initially, to the bathroom on the top floor.
In other words, the water to the washing machine, which is in the basement, first goes through the bathroom on the top floor.
Likewise, there is a bathroom on the first floor, and its water goes initially through that second floor bathroom.
This house was built by General Gillem, whom Fort Gillem in Atlanta was named after, and he didn't want his shower, in that second floor bathroom, to get red hot if someone flushed a toilet.
So, anytime you run a faucet in the house, you can hear the sound of water running in that living room wall downstairs, as the water heads up through the wall to go to that second floor bathroom.
What is weird is, if you flush a toilet, the noise is really loud.
You can hear the sound of water running through the pipe, in the living room wall, but you also hear a loud noise, sounds like the neighbor is running a carpet cleaning machine on the other side of that wall.
This loud sound is made only when a toilet is refilling, it does not occur when you run a faucet.
We have never noticed this sound being so noisy before. I am sure that part of the problem is the empty house, acting like a big echo chamber. Sofas and rugs absorb a lot of sound.
Any expert plumbers who can tell me what this problem is, and how to fix it?
Comments
insall a new flush valve in the toilet
Sometimes when water pressure is high 70 PSI or better water will "scream" by a valve, and depending on the valve it can be quite loud. Try to put new guts in the toilet that may help. Also it is not a bad idea to take some 3/4X1/2x1/2 tees and extend the 3/4 end up about a foot and cap it off usually done off of a shower valve to arrest the hammering that can occur when water is suddenly started and stopped.
I hope you have a stop valve located before any fittings in the house, usually in the basement right as the 3/4 service line enters the house.
A column of water 30 feet high will have 14.7 psi more pressure at the bottom than the top. Having the water go to the 2nd floor first insures even pressure through the house.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
A 30 ft. water column exerts ~12.3 psi.
The other two toilets are 60 years old. One had the inner workings replaced a few years ago.
The other toilet, I am not sure about the inner workings.
The noise is equally bad on all 3 toilets. It occurs only while the toilet is refilling.
1 p.s.i = 27.707 inches of water column.
A 30 ft. water column exerts ~12.3 psi.
Well I learned in salt water. You can blame my fetching up in scuba diving.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
"Usually it's done to keep even pressure in all parts of the house."
Very correct. And succinctly put.
The screaming pipe is probably the old galvanized riser.
Where the pipe was cut [and presumably threaded],
the cut edges may never have been reamed. Friction begets noise.
Over the years, the pipe closes in further and further. Now you're raising Caine.
The turdlet usually has a fill valve. An ancient all brass valve might make a racket
but can be disassembled and greased. I haven't seen one since Nixon was in office.
The other, newer "Flushmaster" or equiv. valve has a diaphragm thingy that degrades,
and also makes the flush valve quiver in intense anticipation of continued flow.
Very fixable.
Something similar happened to me last November. It was Thanksgiving, and my wife had just taken the turkey out
of the oven. After sitting for a minute, a high-pitched
squeal began to eminate from the bird. My wife was convinced
it was just pressure from the heat of cooking, but I knew better.
The sound was haunting, varying in pitch and tone. I knew right then we had a poultrygeist.
[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
100%? The sound can travel a good ways through the pipes.
Maybe Psycho will lend you a stethoscope to get a better handle on the noise source.
Wish I could take the case. A challenge is so ... challenging!
The noise is coming from the main cold water supply pipe, as it goes up through the living room wall on the first floor.