Water pipes sound like someone blowing across the mouth of a glass coke bottle

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Nebulous

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When we bought and moved into this house 5 months ago we noticed that after water has been running and stops, there is a sound in our walls very similar to when you blow across the mouth of an empty glass bottle (but lower pitched). There are some facts that may help diagnose this problem:
  1. It can happen after any water has been running, whether hot or cold, whether toilet, shower, or sink in any room
  2. It doesn’t happen every time, but it happens most of the time, and we can’t identify a variable that makes it happen or not happen
  3. Our water pipes are not visible except in one small area in the basement near the hot water heater
  4. This is a big one: We hear the sound many times when no one has recently run water! Sometimes I the middle of the night or while watching TV. Is some pipe slowly leaking to cause that? I don’t know of one.
  5. Here’s another big one: It can sometimes (even when no one has run water) make the sound continuously for several minutes 0 I timed it at 4 ½ minutes once. Other times it is just a few seconds
  6. It happens in all kinds of weather (hot, cold, wet, dry)

We call it “Hootie” because it sort of sounds like an own if it happens only for a short stent.

We have city water and live in a small town in Iowa. The house is a ranch-style and was built in 1974.

What would cause this and what can I do to alleviate it? Is this what an expansion tank is for?

~N
 

Reach4

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One fairly easy test is turn off the supply to each toilet to see if the sound occurs while that toilet is turned off. If a valve is not operational, replace that valve with a quarter-turn valve.

I wonder if the noise could be generated by a pressure reducing valve (PRV). Such a device would be early in path of the water from the street but after the whole-house shutoff valve. They bring down the pressure of incoming water that might go above 80 PSI at times.That seems like a better candidate because all of your water used would pass through that device. It seems harder to detect. Maybe you could crawl under the house and feel for the oscillation at the pipe --not easy or fun for most crawl spaces. Your neighbors or the town water department might know if houses around you normally have such devices. They may not be used in your area because your area is not hilly, so PRVs would be less common.
 
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Jm66208

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What reach said...
Leaky toilets and bad prv.
If it ends up being the prv, dont get a cheesp one from the big box store. I recomend the watts u5b.
 

Jadnashua

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You don't need a PRV to have this sort of problem...all you need is a closed system (i.e., a check-valve) in your system and many utilities are installing them on your incoming water supply line. The simple act of the water heater running without an expansion tank (or a working one) in a closed system will raise the pressure. The water will flow out of the weakest link, and that's often a toilet fill valve. If it gets high enough, the T&P valve on the water heater itself will open to relieve the pressure by releasing a small amount of water. The push to install check valves on the water supply is in response to a potential health hazard. If you have a problem in your home, it is possible to push pollution back into the utility lines and pollute their whole system. A working check-valve stops that but creates a closed system. As a result, many places require an expansion tank in ALL buildings, regardless of what else may be installed in there.

If your static water pressure is really high, the system doesn't need to be closed for say a toilet fill valve to weep, and they can make some noises. You would not necessarily see any problems, as the extra water would just go down the drain.
 

Nebulous

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Thanks for all of your suggestions and great explanations. As for a crawl space, I live in an area where every house has a basement. Mine is a nicely finished living area except for one storage and utility room where the water tank, furnace, etc. is.

So I looked at my plumbing in that room. What are these pictures of? Are the pics of a PRV?
medium.jpg



~N
 

jiggleLow

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Is it possible this is the same problem we are having over here?
https://terrylove.com/forums/index....ater-after-shower-faucet-is-turned-off.64031/

This is a mysterious new development; after taking a shower, you can still hear water running somewhere in the pipes, but there are no leaks detected in the basement. (It would be easy to see any leaks as the plumbing runs through the exposed subfloor.)

However, the sound stops when the diverter valve is adjusted. Here's a short clip demonstrating:
 

Jm66208

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Is there water dripping from the tub spout? Maybe its just a hiss caused by air entering the showerhead as the riser pipe drains.

Oops...meant to post this on your thread, not this one.
 

Nebulous

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@jm66208 Thanks. Embarrassingly I didn't even realize there should be a meter inside the house, only outside. Anyway, there appears not to be a PRV. Nothing else is attached to the water pipe upstream, at least not before it reaches the upstairs floor (where I lose visibility).

@jadnashua suggested a closed system with a check valve and without an expansion tank could cause a similar problem. How would I identify either of those (check valve / expansion tank)?
 

Jm66208

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A simple test would be to go get a pressure test gauge with a lazy arm. Try to get one from a plumbing supply house. The sioux chief ones I have are good. The watts brand from the home depot suck!
The gauge will have a female hose fitting that you can thread on to a hose bib. Do this inside, its too cold in Iowa now and the gauge would freeze. Unhook the cold water hose to your wash machine and put the gauge there for 24 hours. The needle will show current pressure, and the red needle will show the highest pressure the system has reached in the 24 hour period. Do this and report back.
 

Jadnashua

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With a closed system, when the water heater turns on after you've used some hot water (well, anytime it turns on, really), the heating causes the water to expand. Since the pipes themselves aren't elastic, the pressure goes up quickly. Things like the hoses on your washing machine and many of them to faucets can expand a bit, and those can take up a little bit of the increased volume. Closing the system means that the expanding water cannot simply just push back out to the supply. This is one reason why utilities are installing checkvalves, since they have no control over what you might do in your home, and it could pollute their whole system. Local building codes may now require an expansion tank to account for the local utility's making their system safer, but they are always required if you have a prv, which adds your own checkvalve, which may be in addition to the utility's.
 

Reach4

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  • It can happen after any water has been running, whether hot or cold, whether toilet, shower, or sink in any room
  • It doesn’t happen every time, but it happens most of the time, and we can’t identify a variable that makes it happen or not happen
Does it ever happen while water is running?
 

Nebulous

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@Reach4, no it never happens when the water is running. Only either just after it is shut off (almost always) or randomly when no one has recently run water.
 

Reach4

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Get the meter.

If the pressure rises over 80, only after you stop drawing water, the thermal expansion tank is cheap enough.
 
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