How come when I take a shower, if I turn the hot water on, the faucet makes a high pitched squealing sound? I’m pretty sure this always happens, no matter where I shower. I’ve moved about four times, but the squealing has persisted. Any ideas what might be causing this? I assume it happens to most people. If not, I don’t know how you would answer.
Whew! Thank goodness it’s a plumbing not a prison question.
From the Masterplumbers.com website
My thought is that it’s not the faucet, but you squeeling. Turn the temp down so it doesn’t scald you, Bro.
Waitasec… “seems to be linked to the pressure”? Some “master plumbers”! Don’t they know?
I don’t know how to spell poltergiest, and I ain’t gonna look it up.
Peace,
mangeorge
WHEW… I was thinking something TOTALLY diffrent…= D my bad…
All the best jokes have been made in this thread, move along now, nothing to see here…
[thinks… 1. mouse-assisted bathing, 2. ???, 3. profit]
Can I at least mention that as soon as I saw the thread title I had to sing it to the tune of “Crying in the Chapel”?
Oh, and by the way…
Band name!
Do you have a hand-held (remvoable) shower head? If so, this could be culprit! One of our showers does this, but NOT the other. Why? Well, it hit me the other day that BOTH shower heads are the removable type (you can hold it in your hand). Is your shower head this type? If yes, is the hose ribbed as opposed to smooth? Looking in stores, many ARE of the ribbed (like a gooseneck-type of flexible material) design.
The ribs cause the showerhead to “sing”…morelike a “squeal”. Some ribbed pipes “sing” or “whistle” one note while the showerhead hose is out of tune - hitting several musical notes at once - producing this annoying, high-pitched, ghostlike squealing sound. I saw a physics demonstration using a section of corrugated (ribbed) black hose (typ. used to run drainage away from the house). Swung in a circle, the ribbed hose began to “sing”. Likewise, my upright vacuum has an extendable hose for hand-held attachments. It is ribbed to make it flexible. When stretched just right, the hose will “whistle” like a flute. (Naturally, the spacing needed between the ribs is a function of the velocity of the fluid passing over the ribs.)
I was told the cause can be explained from Bernoulli, I don’t know why exactly. Bernoulli’s equation DOES relates velocity to pressure drop across any pipe. However, we’d need frequency (f) and spacing of the ribs (d) in the equation to understand the full relationship here.
In the big picture, the friction from water (or air, for the vacuum) molecules passing over the ribs is hitting a resonant frequency of the hose. This is no different than rubbing your finger around the lip of a crystal glass. (Slightly wet your finger and try this; crystal gives best results.) Or, like blowing across the mouth of a bottle to produce a tone.
The hot water is a contributing factor to the singing causing the ribs of the flex material to expand (or contract) to just right position. Even without hand-holding the hose, the showerhead still squeals when the hose is warmed up (and thus, expanded) just enough!
I know…this does puzzle the plumbers!
Hope this helps…
- Jinx
I would guess a loose washer, also it is possible that there is no expansion chamber or that the one you have is water logged.
we have the same problem witha couple of our taps ( uk style seperate taps hot/cold)
it was our washer, adjusting the flow-rate sorts it.
miby not possibel in teh shower.
new washer?
Easy to solve - get a man in!