I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes
bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann

wrote:

I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes
bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann


More description of the noise and exactly when it happens.
Does the bang (ing) occur as a faucet is opened? Or when closing?
How long does it last?

Water hammer happens when a faucet is closed rapidly, abruptly
stopping the flow. I'm not certain that is what you are experiencing.

Jim

On Mar 25, 12:04 pm, Speedy Jim wrote:
I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes
bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann

More description of the noise and exactly when it happens.
Does the bang (ing) occur as a faucet is opened? Or when closing?
How long does it last?

Water hammer happens when a faucet is closed rapidly, abruptly
stopping the flow. I'm not certain that is what you are experiencing.

Jim- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Jim,

Thanks for your quick reply. It happens when close the faucet.

On Mar 25, 12:04 pm, Speedy Jim wrote:
wrote:
I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes
bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann

More description of the noise and exactly when it happens.
Does the bang (ing) occur as a faucet is opened? Or when closing?
How long does it last?

Water hammer happens when a faucet is closed rapidly, abruptly
stopping the flow. I'm not certain that is what you are experiencing.
and its banging noise


Jim- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

wrote:

On Mar 25, 12:04 pm, Speedy Jim wrote:

I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes

bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann

More description of the noise and exactly when it happens.
Does the bang (ing) occur as a faucet is opened? Or when closing?
How long does it last?

Water hammer happens when a faucet is closed rapidly, abruptly
stopping the flow. I'm not certain that is what you are experiencing.

Jim- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -



Jim,

Thanks for your quick reply. It happens when close the faucet.


Since you are on city water, I would next investigate whether
the pressure is especially high. Anything over 80 psi would be
excessive. Installation of a PRV (regulator) and expansion tank
could relieve that.

You might ask close-by neighbors whether they are having similar
problems.

Jim

with high water pressure, turning the water off suddenly, would create
a shock wave to go through the pipes, making a rattle, or even your
"bang"

On 25 Mar 2007 08:57:09 -0700, wrote:

I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes
bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on

This sentence is why Jim didn't know what you meant.

I got water hammer when I replaced the rubber hoses to my clothes
washer, one of which had burst, with woven steel covered water hoses.

The rubber water hoses had acted as shock absorbers for the water when
I turned off faucets, and when the washer shut its valves.

including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house.

I don't think you need all over. Just one set maybe. I bought 2
things probably at home depot that are about 4 or 5 inches long, and I
put them where it was easiest, between the washing machine faucets and
the washing machine hoses. Took 20 or 30 minutes.

But before you do this, you should consider the whole washing machine
issue. The hoses burst for lots of people, and the flooding is always
bad and can be disastrous. The instructions with the washer say to
turn the washer off whenever you are not using it. But I think most
people don't. If you install the kind of water hammer preventer I
just suggested, as I did it, turning off the washing machine water
will disconnect them.

So you need to think about a comprehensive solution.

This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann

On 25 Mar 2007 08:57:09 -0700, wrote:

. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basemen

If a website suggeted this, it must have been more about emptying the
sytem than flushing it.

Some places have vertical, dead-end pipes attached some place, which
stick up and are filled with air, not water. Eventually iiuc the air
will dissolve into the water, and water will fill the pipe. This
takes years but I have no idea how many years.

If you have these, and you empty the system and give it time for these
pipes to empty also, when you refill the pipes, they should be good
again.

A) You have to have them for this to work.
B) They have to be able to empty. Thin pipes would empty slowly, sort
of like ketchup doesn't want to come out of the bottle, or a full can
of cranberry sauce, but if they use 1/2 or 3/4 inch pipe, I don't know
how much extra time it takes. In addtion to the time it takes the
pipes just beneath them to empty.

I got water hammer when I replaced the rubber hoses to my clothes
washer, one of which had burst, with woven steel covered water hoses.

The rubber water hoses had acted as shock absorbers for the water when
I turned off faucets, and when the washer shut its valves.


Slightly off of the OPs topic...what kind of luck have you had with the
steel covered hoses? I lost a rubber hose once, and it was quite
spectacular. Fortunately, the garage was lower then the house and the damage
was minimal. I bought steel covered hoses and now I leave them turned on all
the time and don't even think about them anymore.

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:04:10 -0700, "Ook" Ook Don't send me any
freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the Don't send me any freakin'
spam wrote:


I got water hammer when I replaced the rubber hoses to my clothes
washer, one of which had burst, with woven steel covered water hoses.

The rubber water hoses had acted as shock absorbers for the water when
I turned off faucets, and when the washer shut its valves.


Slightly off of the OPs topic...what kind of luck have you had with the
steel covered hoses?

So far, so good!

I lost a rubber hose once, and it was quite
spectacular.

Mine would have been spectacular if I hadn't heard the water running
when I woke up. It burst sometime that night, and it seemed like it
was only a half hour or less. I can only guess if I had left for
work, or been gone for a weekend, or a month.

BEcause of all the leaks etc. I finally glued a slat, maybe 1/2 inch
high in the doorway between the laundry room and the family room.
None of the floods so far have been higher than that and the sump pump
would probably get it before it could go higher.

Fortunately, the garage was lower then the house and the damage
was minimal. I bought steel covered hoses and now I leave them turned on all
the time and don't even think about them anymore.

Well, it seems to me that it should last a lot longer, but how much
longer is longer than 10 years.

It seems to me the water hammer thing shows/proves, that the rubber
hoses would swell when the water was turned off, and that meant that
the side of the hose was being stretched, dozens of times a day. And
I'm the only one who lives here. A second person would almost double
that, etc. Some times they shut off quicker than others, so it
stretched more than others, but still total maybe 10,000 times a year.

Now the metal keeps it from stretching more than a certain amount,
maybe very little if the metal is tight, and mostly it just compresses
the side of the rubber hose, all sides. But you could have hundreds
of people walking on a rubber mat all day for a long time before it
would wear through, and that's with abrasive shoe soles, not smooth
water.

Don't forget, I'm not the smartest guy in town. If you followed me
around, you'd know that for sure.

This is all a guess. Surely someone actually knows how long the
average metal clad hose lasts.

e. I don't want to install water arrestor all over the place

But it's not called a water arrestor, I don't think. What is it
called?

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:25:00 -0400, mm
wrote:


Some places have vertical, dead-end pipes attached some place, which
stick up and are filled with air, not water. Eventually iiuc the air
will dissolve into the water, and water will fill the pipe. This
takes years but I have no idea how many years.

The little ones I bought have flexible rubber, I think, to keep the
air from dissolving into the water, but eventually the rubber will
break and since the things I bought are only 4 or 5 inches long and
thinner than most pipes, the air will get absorbed even quicker, once
it starts.

It's been about 10 or 12 years. So far so good. Again, I live alone so
this and many things last longer.

"mm" wrote in message
...

e. I don't want to install water arrestor all over the place

But it's not called a water arrestor, I don't think. What is it
called?

It is an accumulator. It might have different commercial names, but
technically it's an accumulator. If you put one at each faucet that causes
pipe banging, the pipe banging will go away. Not sure if it's worth the
money, it might be easier to identify the pipe that is actually banging and
put the accumulator between that and the faucets if possible. An accumulator
performs a similar function to filter capacitors in a power supply in that
it maintains a more constant pressure when there are transient spikes in
load. It prevents the current surge that causes pipe banging.

water hammer arrestor

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/waterhammerarresters.html

--
Steve Barker

YOU should be the one
controlling YOUR car.
Check out:
www.lightsout.org




"mm" wrote in message
...

e. I don't want to install water arrestor all over the place

But it's not called a water arrestor, I don't think. What is it
called?

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...

"mm" wrote in message
...

e. I don't want to install water arrestor all over the place

But it's not called a water arrestor, I don't think. What is it
called?

It is an accumulator. It might have different commercial names, but
technically it's an accumulator. If you put one at each faucet that causes
pipe banging, the pipe banging will go away. Not sure if it's worth the
money, it might be easier to identify the pipe that is actually banging
and put the accumulator between that and the faucets if possible. An
accumulator performs a similar function to filter capacitors in a power
supply in that it maintains a more constant pressure when there are
transient spikes in load. It prevents the current surge that causes pipe
banging.


I might mention that in industrial/commercial applications, you will find
pipes with springs at the bends to absorve the movement caused by sudden
changes in water flow. You don't usually find that in residential
applications. However, I think better builders will be carefull to secure
the pipes at bends to prevent pipe banging. Doesn't mean the pipes won't
come loose in time.

Not to mention the little buggers are 10 semolians each! A "T" and 12" of
pipe are a lot better. I've never known them to become waterlogged as
others here have suggested.

--
Steve Barker

YOU should be the one
controlling YOUR car.
Check out:
www.lightsout.org




"mm" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:25:00 -0400, mm
wrote:


Some places have vertical, dead-end pipes attached some place, which
stick up and are filled with air, not water. Eventually iiuc the air
will dissolve into the water, and water will fill the pipe. This
takes years but I have no idea how many years.

The little ones I bought have flexible rubber, I think, to keep the
air from dissolving into the water, but eventually the rubber will
break and since the things I bought are only 4 or 5 inches long and
thinner than most pipes, the air will get absorbed even quicker, once
it starts.

It's been about 10 or 12 years. So far so good. Again, I live alone so
this and many things last longer.

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:44:52 -0500, "Steve Barker"
wrote:

water hammer arrestor

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/waterhammerarresters.html


Thanks. I've tried to arrest water, but it keeps slipping through my
fingers. Hammers on the other hand, are easier to hold on to.

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:46:18 -0500, "Steve Barker"
wrote:

Not to mention the little buggers are 10 semolians each! A "T" and 12" of
pipe are a lot better.

I wanted to build it myself, but it would have been really difficult
to install in this application.

I've never known them to become waterlogged as
others here have suggested.

I've heard that happens. I'm too young for it to have happened to me.


Hmmm, even the webpage you gave,
http://www.plumbingsupply.com/waterhammerarresters.html

gives a picture of an arrester with a piston inside.

I don't think they would do all the things they do -- this is just one
method -- to keep the water separated from the air if the air didn't
get absorbed by the water.

Hmmm. For the laundry mini-rester, which is a lot like I have, they
now want 20 dollars each. I wonder if my retirement account allows
for inflation!



--

On Mar 25, 3:46 pm, "Steve Barker"
wrote:
Not to mention the little buggers are 10 semolians each! A "T" and 12" of
pipe are a lot better. I've never known them to become waterlogged as
others here have suggested.

--
Steve Barker

YOU should be the one
controlling YOUR car.
Check out:www.lightsout.org

"mm" wrote in message

...

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:25:00 -0400, mm
wrote:

Some places have vertical, dead-end pipes attached some place, which
stick up and are filled with air, not water. Eventually iiuc the air
will dissolve into the water, and water will fill the pipe. This
takes years but I have no idea how many years.

The little ones I bought have flexible rubber, I think, to keep the
air from dissolving into the water, but eventually the rubber will
break and since the things I bought are only 4 or 5 inches long and
thinner than most pipes, the air will get absorbed even quicker, once
it starts.

It's been about 10 or 12 years. So far so good. Again, I live alone so
this and many things last longer.

A "T" and 12" of pipe are a lot better.

And the basis for this claim is?

btw I just did a comparison of a size "A" piston style water hammer
arrestor vs a capped 12" length of pipe. The WHA tamed the water
hammer on the washing machine supply line where the "length of pipe"
one did not.

cheers
Bob

for anyone really interested in water hammer & water hammer arrestors
(piston & bellows type)


http://www.jrsmith.com/external/smit...load_index.htm

Since the "old school" air chamber water hammer reducers are not pre-
charged, they lose most of their capacity when the plumbing system is
pressurized with water....they lose the rest when their effectiveness
over time when the air gets absorbed into the water.

Yes, they can be "recharged" by draining the system but most the time
this is never done.


Properly sized & installed water hammer arrestors will keep system
pressure spikes below 150 psi.

On 25 Mar 2007 08:57:09 -0700, wrote:

I have 15 year old house with city water. I just started to hear pipes
bang "Water Hammer" I am not sure if this was coming before or just
came to my attention. I moved in this house about a year ago. I have
replaced every single fill valve in all the toilets. No matter which
faucet I turn on the noise is always there. It comes when any water is
turned on including dishwasher, washer, toilet shower or any other
faucet in the house. I don't want to install water arrestor all over
my house. This happens on both hot and cold water. I have read
multiple articles on the website and tried variuos things including
flusing out the entire system by shuting main valve and then closing
all facuet starting from basement. By the way the basement is finished
and looks like all pipes are nicely secured & anchored. Any help or
suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ann


In my experience, water hammer is worst when shutting down faucets.
This sounds like something else, maybe a bad presure reducing valve?
Is there a single source of the noise or is it allover?

tom @ www.MedJobSite.com