Water Hammer (neighbour and us)

buppy

We are renting and have very noisy pipes both banging and when you walk across the floor they squak but as we dont use our water at night and the neighbours below said they didnt hear anything we havent approached our land lord to sort it out.

However since downstairs have had a water meter installed their pipes bang every 10 mins all through the night.
Last night it woke me and the baby up at midnight, I really thought someone was banging on the front door it was so loud.

The neighbours (very old but well off) still say they cant hear ours and certainly can't hear theirs. One is deaf and the other wears ear plugs at night due to her husband snoring.

Ear plugs would be bliss for us but we cant wear them as we have to be able to hear the baby cry

Can I do anything about this? Its ruining our sleep which we dont get much of anyway and its starting to affect work etc.

Should I be offering to pay to get it done for them? What if the plumber ends up finding a huge job I can't pay for that.

It seems to be happening with both hot and cold taps as well so might be more difficult to fix.

Roll on finding our house and moving out of this place. The landlord wont fix stuff that isnt urgent (ie killing us) but wont let us fix it either.
x

p,s below own their flat x

Fire_Fox

Contact Environmental Health at the local council regarding the noise, they can mediate with the flat owner initially, enforce repairs or soundproofing if needs be.

As regards your flat are you writing to the landlord to report these issues? What is he not repairing?

buppy

Thanks Fire fox

Havent bothered from our side as we can put up with it in the day and we are only hoping to be here another few months while we find a house to buy.

We are on a rolling contract we we had to fight for and pay through the nose for so dont want to be served notice for reporting things we can live with.
Its things like a broken integrated dishwasher he said he would fix and hasn't come back. A leaking fridge wich we have stuck in the garage and bought our own, a leaking shower which has been reported and botched but is damaging his property not ours so its his issue if he wont pay for it to be fixed.
As i say minor things that arent worth losing our home over until we are ready.

Do you think we should inform our landlord about the noise downstairs before contacting EH ? I dont want to do it the wrong way around and annoy people. I wouldnt expect him to do anything about it though.
x

buppy

** botched by him I might add, we havent done anything about the shower other than get him around.

averagemummy

It's a good few years since I worked for a water company, but the problem I think might lie with the new water meter.

If I remember rightly it is quite possibly the stop valve in the new meter that is vibrating - or it could be the main internal stop valve in the downstairs apartment vibrating, because the pressure may have increased due to a new connection (meter).

Have you noticed better water pressure recently? Mind you if you are in the upstairs you may not have noticed. Could you get together with your neightbours and try turning off the water at the meter for about 10 mins and then turn it on again?

If that doesn't solve it you may well end up moving before this gets resolved as it sounds like the pipework internally may need checking through and it doesn't sound like your llord will want to do that. Hope that helps

buppy

Thanks Averagemummy certainly worth a try, the water meter is in the street 50 foot away from the property so its more likely to be something in the flat doing it.

The main problem we have is the oldies aren't bothered so aren't wanting to do anything about it.

I might try the bursting into tears on their doorstep from lack of sleep trick next.

Not noticed better water pressure but its always been fairly good for a flat anyway to be honest.
x

paddyrg

My *guess* is that whilst they were fitting an in-line meter they got air in the system which propagated up to the property, then bubbled to the highest trapping point, then caused this issue. See if anyone in the DIY forum can advise maybe? There may be some top tip like opening upstairs taps whilst turning off the supply, or something like that...

G_M

Water hammer has several possible causes - all relatively easy to fix. Some you could try yourself (try googling 'water hammer' or post on this forum here).

But don't try anything much yourself - if you make a mistake, cause a flood or damage, you will be liable.

Better to write to the landlord.

And as for downstairs, not much you can do except persuade THEM to do something.

One easy (free) option is to get the water company to check the new meter. That is fully THEIR responsibility.