Wood cracking sound from pipe expansion

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capo

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Hi,

I live in a recently purchased condo on the second floor of a 3 floor building, the condo is 4 years old, I have a persistent noise behind my kitchen counters that I can only describe as a wood/pipe cracking sound, it's intermittent and sometimes the delay between each noise is very short.

There's an opening underneath the counter, I was able to stick my arm in and film the source of the noise, it seems to come from a pipe, I can reproduce the noise by pushing and pulling on the pipe, the pipe also feels warm when the noise occurs and I can feel water streaming through it from the people living upstairs.

I managed to film the pipe and the noise it makes when I push and pull on it,
you can view the video here:


maybe someone can provide me some insight on how to reduce this noise I would greatly appreciate it;

Thank you,

Fred
 
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Terry

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ABS pipe expands and contracts when it heats and cools. Most noises from that are when the pipe is cooling. The pipe stretches, and then contracts.
It looks like firestopping between floors that that may be binding. I don't think you should remove that.
Sometimes pipe going through floors will make a ticking sound as the pipe rubs past.
 

Jadnashua

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ABS pipe's thermal expansion constant is 35x10-6 in/in oF. Using that, if you had a 20' long section of ABS, and the temperature changed 30-degrees F, the pipe would become 0.252" longer, then, shrink back when it cooled off to room temperature. If it is held anywhere, it will either try to distort, or slide through that restriction. IT would be much bigger if say someone were to drain their pasta water down the sink, so instead of the temperature changing maybe 30-degrees while taking a shower, it changed 150-degrees, or 5x as much. Now, the actual pipe won't reach that water temperature unless that flow was constant, but still, you get an idea...plastic pipe expands and contracts LOTS more (almost 6x) than say cast iron pipe, and with the much greater mass, it would take much longer to actually change temperature.

This is one reason why cast iron drain pipes are still considered a premium upgrade for a drainage system verses the much more common plastic pipe.
 

hj

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PIpes expand rapidly when hot water flows through them which can cause any number of noises as it rubs on the building's structural surfaces. The same sounds will occur when it cools off but that is a slower process so you probably do not hear them.
 
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