New water noise from neighbor upstairs

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valvn

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Hi everybody!

About a month ago, I started hearing every single time my neighbor upstairs (he's also the landlord and my only upstairs neighbor) uses his shower and flushes the toilet.
The noise is so loud as if someone is showering or flushing in my bathroom - it's not the sound of flowing water but rather falling water when he flushes and the water hitting the bathtub bottom when he showers. Sometimes I can even hear water dripping from his showerhead after he turns off the tap.

I've been living in this apartment for over a year and it was absolutely quiet, and my landlord wasn't absent all this time, I just couldn't hear him. I live in a small studio and even if I close the bathroom door, I can still hear these sounds - they travel through the wall into the kitchen corner. Freaked out quite a few times when the sound of flushing woke me up.

What could be the reason for such a sudden change (ventilation, pipes, clogging etc.?). Thanks!
 

Tuttles Revenge

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Noises are hard to track down most of the time. Most likely nothing has physically changed. But if something did break and you do hear it when both the toilet is flushed and while a shower is being taken, then it would be downstream of both fixtures and likely the main stack. But the fact that you're hearing a drip from the showerhead after a shower sounds to me more like that you've just become more sensitive to the sound.
 

Reach4

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Maybe some upstairs flooring change was made, tho that is unlikely to change the sounds from the shower.

It could also be that your hearing got better. It's not common, but it happens.
 

valvn

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Thanks for the replies!


https://soundcloud.com/murashka-valerka/jan-9-1008-am

Here's a record of what it sounds like when my landlord is showering (i apologize for the recording quality). I am pretty sensitive to loud noises but it's also a reason why I started noticing these noises now. Because they are way too loud to have been left unnoticed before.

I also noticed that I could hear the water trickling down behind the wall when it was raining really hard last night. Also never happened before.

I was thinking if the cracks in the walls could be the reason the sound is amplified? Last summer during the rainy season one of my walls was leaking and I had water dripping on my bed during the storm. It took two times to fix the coating outside but I was just thinking there could have been the same problem with my bathroom wall?
 

Paulypfunk

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Any chance you have been recently bitten by a radioactive spider or exposed to massive amounts of gamma radiation? Perhaps a recessive mutation gene has matured and your secret powers are beginning to reveal themselves?
 

valvn

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Any chance you have been recently bitten by a radioactive spider or exposed to massive amounts of gamma radiation? Perhaps a recessive mutation gene has matured and your secret powers are beginning to reveal themselves?
Not really, still winter here in Hanoi, radioactive spiders hunkering down under radioactive rocks.
 

valvn

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plastic drain pipes , fiberglass tubs are noisy. Got Cast Iron?

Mmm don't think my landlord would be willing to change the pipes, although he is being really cooperative. Do you have any idea what could have caused the unusual noise (apart from a version with my hearing being too good)?
 

Paulypfunk

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I can’t think of a technical reason why the noise would all of a sudden get louder. Water noise running though plastic drain pipes is a common complaint. What has changed? If no repairs or construction have taken place then I have to wonder what else might have changed? Are your upstairs neighbors on a different schedule? Perhaps this has always happened but you just notice it because you are now both home at the same time.
 

Jeff H Young

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No Idea why you didnt hear it befor . Either something changed , or nothing changed , youll have to tell us ? but my guess is the tub and drains are not castiron and plastic and fiberglas is noisy
 

Tuttles Revenge

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Well.. something changed. What material are the walls made from? Masonry cinder block? If the walls shifted in a rain event, maybe that created a gap somewhere. Either in a wall that allows noise to escape now, or maybe through a ceiling ventilation fan?
 

valvn

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I can’t think of a technical reason why the noise would all of a sudden get louder. Water noise running through plastic drain pipes is a common complaint. What has changed? If no repairs or construction have taken place then I have to wonder what else might have changed? Are your upstairs neighbors on a different schedule? Perhaps this has always happened but you just notice it because you are now both home at the same time.
I was staying home for about 3 months during our first lockdown, so don't think it's about our schedules. And I also had friends staying with me last year for about a month, I've just sent them a message and they don't remember ANY noise from upstairs.
If you listen to the record I attached above, you'd probably agree that it's not some light noise that I am being sensitive about. I asked my neighbors downstairs if they ever hear me shower or flush and they said they need to really listen to notice any sounds. I actually went to their apartment to check and I could hardly hear the sound of flushing, the shower sound is not audible.

Mystery :(
 

valvn

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Well.. something changed. What material are the walls made from? Masonry cinder block? If the walls shifted in a rain event, maybe that created a gap somewhere. Either in a wall that allows noise to escape now, or maybe through a ceiling ventilation fan?
Thanks for the reply! I'll have to ask the landlord about the walls. Well I wrote before that I had a wall (not the one conducting the sounds though) leaking in summer during our rainy (think tropical rainy) season and there were some cracks in the coating. This is how my wall looked like for about 3 months :-D photo_2020-03-04_13-35-08.jpg photo_2020-04-24_08-49-34 (2).jpg photo_2020-04-24_08-49-34.jpg

You know, this was actually one of the reasons I could think about after googling for hours about similar issues. Don't think the walls shifted because of the rain but maybe due to poor construction quality standards (or rather their absence) here in Vietnam. We also had a 4.7 earthquake here but it was in July, and the sounds appeared about a month or two ago. Weirdly, but almost at the same time when this shower/toilet noise issue appeared I also started feeling the vibration from the landlord's walking upstairs, especially when I am on my bed. He is definitely not a heavy-footed person, but now connecting all these events gets me thinking it's definitely the walls, not the plumbing.

Is there anything that can be done if the reason is a gap in the walls?
 

Tuttles Revenge

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Sound mitigation is a tricky thing. The best way to dampen sounds in a building is applying different density materials between the source and the ear. Each density of material absorbs a different wave length. In your case it would probably involve installing a second ceiling below the existing one with a membrane of rubber screwed to the ceiling with hat or z channel and a layer of drywall or whatever finish material are used locally.. Probably not practical for your application.
 
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