"Otter" wrote in message
...
We recently bought a new build house. We are very pleased with it and
it seems to be built good and solid (unlike our last house).

One thing that irks me is that water running thru the pipes is very
noticable when I have the outside sprinklers on, or if someone is
taking a shower (and when the bath is being run it sounds like the
ceiling is going to come crashing down).

I figure there's not a lot I can do about the pipes inside the walls,
but I wonder what I can do to deaden the sound from the pipes in the
basement, which are all exposed. Would simply adding foam insulation
help or would I have to do something on a more larger scale? The
basement pipes are all ceiling level so they are close to the floor on
the main floor, which is probably why they're so loud.

Thanks

-Otter

Just went through this myself. But I had the walls open.
Basically I insulated all of the hot pipes and then took plumbers tape
(strapping tape) and screwed the pipes down on every stud.
http://www.plumbingworld.com/tapes.html

I strapped down all of the cold water pipes on every stud and changed the
hose bibs out from gate valves to ball valves.
Noise from the back hose bib is reduced ~20-30%
Noise from the front is gone.
If your pipes are in holes you could use door shims to wedge the pipe to the
stud.
My biggest source of noise was my water heater. Inside, basically center of
the home. I got the biggest reduction when those pipes were strapped down
and insulated.

Good luck finding and reducing the source of the noise.