Tapping & Knocking noise coming from apartment walls

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Cameron Boivin

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Good evening,

I recently moved into a new apartment (Built in 1999 but very well kept). The apartment has an Apollo based system. Since my girlfriend and I moved in the sound has occurred, that has been 10 days. It has been worse then what it is now. In the past ten days of narrowing down the sound and having the apartments third party plumber come by, they have done some repairs yet the noise continues. The apartment maintenance replaced the hot water heater and bleed the lines. They found the hot water heater with small holes and rust. A plumber came the other day and added a "control valve" to the new water heater yet last night it seemed like the noise picked up a bit. Not in noise level but consistency.


The noise is a tapping or knocking. It only occurs in the bedroom for the most point; the hot water heater is located on the porch which is right outside of the bedroom. The air handler for the Apollo system is right outside of the bedroom French doors in the wall to the right. The sound seems to have narrowed a bit to being closer to the air handler, also when the sound occurs I can't hear it at the hot water heater anymore. The sound does not correlate to the heat running or not, but it does seem to intensify or happen when water is run either by myself or upstairs neighbor. It's hard because there is not an obvious correlation at any given time.


The plumber stated that if the sound continues to get an HVAC company to check that portion before he would return. I've read up a lot on this and I don't think it's contraction due to temperature. I live in NC where it can be 20 degrees then 70, the temps don't really matter and it happens. Also, I’ve tried switching the heat on and off and it happens. As well as when the fan is on auto or just on it happens. It mainly happens at night and in the afternoon.


Any ideas? It's becoming Chinese torture and the white noise machine does not always mask it.


Thank you!
 

Cameron Boivin

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It is a gas powered one. It's hard to say honestly, the sound happens sometimes with water and sometimes not. I will say that it seems way more prevelant and intense with water.
 
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Terry

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If you have plastic pipes, then running hot water down the lines will cause the pipes to expand and contract. If the holes are drilled a little crooked, and the pipe is tight in the hole, then when the pipe contracts, it can make knocking sounds. If that is the case, I've gone back and cut wood out around the pipe to allow movement without the gripping.
 

Cameron Boivin

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If you have plastic pipes, then running hot water down the lines will cause the pipes to expand and contract. If the holes are drilled a little crooked, and the pipe is tight in the hole, then when the pipe contracts, it can make knocking sounds. If that is the case, I've gone back and cut wood out around the pipe to allow movement without the gripping.

The pipes are plastic, I looked at what I could without going into the wall. They seem to have correct spacing and look fine, but I am by no means a subject matter expert. Thank you for the insight, I'll add it to my list to provide the landlord. I seem to have isolated the sound to one certain area now in the upper wall. I'm thinking of asking them to cut into the wall to look.
 

Jadnashua

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Not only must the water pipes (normally the hot is worst) be free to move as the expand and contract after hot water use, the plastic drain pipes can expand/contract quite a bit as well as you drain hot water though them (a shower, maybe the washing machine). As an experiment, boil a pot of water and dump it down the shower...That's a worst case thermal shock, and if the sounds start up, it's a drain pipe issue. If it sounds different, and only when and after (until the pipes cool off again) from hot water running, you'd notice that as probably sounding a bit different. On either case, the sound can continue after you've stopped draining or using hot water until the pipes return to their normal temperature.
 

Pedoritos

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I and my family had a similar issue in an apartment that was built in 2002 and I am so glad that we had a good plumber and he was our neighbor and he helped us with a lot of issues as these old apartments are having problems year by year. We are planning to move to a new modern apartment in 2021 and we are thinking of renting a 6 bedroom luxury apartment peter cooper village for our two families and hope we will move in as soon as possible as maybe we will be able to move in late 2020 before Christmas. Wish you all good luck with any issues in your apartments and be healthy!
 
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