Many older houses in the Scottsdale, Arizona area have ghosts in the walls that only seem to manifest themselves when you turn on the water. They do not rattle chains or moan mournfully (usually), but are rather obnoxious pranksters who prefer to knock repeatedly and annoyingly against hidden structures in the house.
These ghosts are in fact, of course, water pipes that are most likely loose and striking against nearby fixtures whenever water courses through them. Scottsdale plumbers are experts in finding banging pipes and securing them, ending their rancor and putting an end to what seemed to be poltergeist activity.
If you can see the pipe banging in a basement or crawlspace (or elsewhere), you may figure out a way to carefully secure the pipe yourself, but care must be taken not to constrict it too tightly. Water pipes do expand and constrict with temperature changes, and a pipe too tightly bound may break.
Other obvious solutions may depend on the circumstance. You might, for instance, find noise being created by two pipes that are knocking against each other when the water is on. Welding them together can work, or wedging strips of rubber between them in order to halt the clatter.
Knocking that occurs when only the hot water is on is another problem altogether. Your water heater’s temperature is probably set too high, which causes steam to move through the system which can pop as it expands and distributes itself along the pipeline and can sound like knocking. Turning down the setting on your water heater will probably solve the problem.
Supply piping that is too small can get clogged with mineral deposits and become a bit noise problem as well. Cleaning these is a nearly impossible task. You can filter out the sound considerably by wrapping the pipes in insulation, but the more permanent solution is to call Scottsdale plumbers and have the supply pipes replaced, unless you don’t mind living with the noise.
Water hammer is a specific problem that occurs when you turn off the water and the water in the pipes are brought to a quick halt. If this happens, the problem is likely due to a malfunction of the air chambers in your plumbing, which work sort of like shock absorbers. One cause may be high water pressure. This may start out as a small problem, but malfunctioning or the complete lack of air chambers can create other types of plumbing problems, such as pipes bursting. Scottsdale plumbers can help you to adjust water pressure or resolve water hammer problems for you.
