Vibrating cold water pipe

[markseger]

This intermittent problem has been bothering me for years and I never seem to be able to be able to track it down so I thought I'd give it a shot in this forum, especially since I just did find some new details I didn't notice before.

The short description is occasionally when either flushing a particular toilet or turning on the hot water faucet in the same bathroom, there's this real loud vibrating noise that can last anywhere from a few seconds to maybe a 1/2 minute or so, even after the water is turned off.

The problem faucet is a Jado and consists of a spigot and 2 faucets. When I turn on the HOT water and the vibrating starts, after I turn it off I still see water coming out of the spigot even though this is a washerless faucet that normally works very well. Furthermore, if I touch the supply lines under the sink I can actually feel the COLD supply vibrating! If I then open the cold water faucet the vibrations stop and when I turn it off it starts vibrating again and that small stream of water continues to flow out of the spigot! Once the vibrations stop, the water stops flowing.

I just tried flushing the toilet and saw water come out of the spigot in the sink but eventually stop, even though there were no vibrations. How can that be if both faucets are turned off? Is something going on in the faucet itself part of the problem? But how could that be when I don't even touch them when flushing the toilet. The only thing they have in common is that they both ARE on the same supply into the bathroom. But it just seems very odd...

If it would help, I might be able to video what's happening and post it on utube, but I think I've described the problem pretty well.

-mark

 

[markseger]

Update

I just saw the post about foghorn sound and that's probably a pretty good description of my sound, though the cold water pipe is clearly vibrating and thats where the noise IS coming from. I check the supply valve under the sink and it is indeed wide-open so I tried an experiment. I turned on the hot water and got the vibration going and during that time shut off the cold water valve and the noise/vibration immediately stopped! If I open it the noise starts back up. Any clues?
-mark

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Krow]

Your hot water cartridge needs to be replaced. No amount of washers or o-rings will fix that cartridge...............

Better yet, replace the entire lav faucet

 

[markseger]

What exactly is the hot water cartridge? The faucet's innards?
-mark

 

[markseger]

update

I just got off the phone with a customer support person at Jado - very helpful. He agreed that there is indeed a problem with the cartridge and I'm replacing it - it would be much too costly to replace the entire faucet. He also suspects there are possibly 2 things going on:
- if there is water coming out of the spigot when the supply is turned off there is definitely a cartridge problem
- there may be a loose washer or debris in the line and that might be causing the vibration

Sounds like the rational thing to do is see if the new cartridge fixes the vibration problem (he doesn't think it will) and if not, then go after the supply valve.

-mark