The apartment people came by yesterday and said the neighbors below were complaining of water leaks, and I needed to have my water heater replaced in order to fix it. Took a couple hours for them to install the new one, and all seemed well and good.
But now there’s this unfortunate issue that didn’t exist before - there’s this periodic loud “groaning” or “moaning” sound that comes from the pipes just before a short run of water to the toilet (the toilet has always done that and I’m not even sure if that is normal in itself, but it never had the loud noise preceding it like this). It’s not always totally consistent, but when it does happen it happens every 10-15 minutes or so. It’s especially unfortunate that my bedroom is right next to the water heater on one side and the bathroom/toilet on the other side, so the noises were keeping me up all night last night.
I’m going to call management about it tomorrow to see if anything can be done, but I’m curious whether anyone has any ideas about what could be causing this and whether it’s likely something that can be taken care of or not.
It’s common for pipes to pipes to make noise when water flows through them. The water pressure moves the pipe slightly and you might hear creaking, ticking, groaning, etc. Sometimes it happens because the pipes aren’t tied down well. It doesn’t necessarily indicate a real problem with the pipes, though, other than they make noise.
The increased noise could be related to the water heater. If they moved the pipes or changed their configuration, even slightly, it could change how the pressure reacts with the pipes and how they make noise.
The periodic noise to the toilet is likely because the toilet is leaking. The landlord should fix it. There is a slight leak (likely from the tank to the bowl), and the toilet is having to keep topping off the tank.
Ah… there is definitely a slight trickle of water into the bowl, and silly me never realized that was actually a problem I should have addressed before. I will ask them to look at that. Thanks.
Your anti hammer chambers got waterlogged during the repair. You need to drain your water lines to fix it.
Why do you think this is an issue of water hammer acoustics?
Anti-hammer chambers are vertical pipes, capped on the top, so they keep a big bubble in there. The trapped air absorbs bangs, squeals, and groans generated by vibrations in the pipes.