DIYbanter - View Single Post - Continuous clicking from apartment heating system

David Nebenzahl

Todd H. spake thus:

writes:

Coming from within the wall, there's a relatively loud (and sometimes
quite annoying) constant clicking sound at even, though gradually
changing intervals. If I turn the heat up, the clicking starts
immediately with a fraction of a second between each click. Usually
that lasts for a few seconds and gradually slows down to a few seconds
between each click. Of course, it keeps doing this in cycles and
doesn't let up much between cycles. I'm not sure what type of heating
system it is, but there are baseboards, and when I turn the heat up, it
sounds like water or something starts circulating. Any idea what's
causing this and if it's normal?

This is a wild guess as I've never had baseboard boiler heat, but
perhaps you've got a boiler behind the wall that heats water that
recirculates to baseboard registers.

The clicking may be an electronic ignitor to light the gas burner of
the boiler when heat is called for. If the ignitor continuously is
clicking, perhaps the thermocouple is bad and preventing the gas from
flowing to light the burner and have the ignitor stop. Or, if you
actually are getting heat, maybe whatever controls the ignitor is bad.

If he (I assume he's a he) thinks it might be the click of an
electronic-ignition spark, it should be pretty easy to tell: unlike the
clicking sounds emitted by pipes, etc., as they expand and contract with
heat, the electronic ignition clicks will be absolutely regular. The
other clicks won't, but will instead be more randomly timed.

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