Water Hammer in PreWar Building Being Renovated

jenbooks

Hi, I live on the 2nd floor of a big prewar building on Riverside Drive that is undergoing massive renovation--about 100 warehoused apartments are being gut renovated including new piping, wiring etc, and the lobby, etc--in prep for high end condo conversion.

The three apartments over me have all been gut renovated and I did have a flood and a leak at one point this summer.

Anyway, for the first time in 10 years, even tho I have permanently turned off my master bedroom radiator (not just with the knob, but had them come in and disable it) I am getting horrible water hammer half the night, every hour or so, from the super's apartment below. I can't sleep. The management has been facing constant complaints from myself and other tenants who've had floods, leaks, partial wall collapses etc, as they conduct this major overhaul, and sometimes they are helpful and sometimes not. To me this is worse than the flood or leak because I literally am totally exhausted from constantly interrupted sleep. It's Thanksgiving weekend and it just started earlier this week with the very cold weather. I will alert management and the super but do you have any ideas, I read your advice in general and will give htem that email. If they can't fix it on their own, can they hire someone you've trained?

Thanx. BTW this NEVER happened previously unless I had MY radiator on and then i was only at 6 a.m. not half the night. The reason I disabled my radiator is I don't like steam heat anyway, and like to sleep under nice cozy comforters.

jeff_51

I take it they have disconnected alot of rads

and are redoing piping. You will probably get hammer untill they get alot more of the system up and running again. The system right now is probably way out of balance, and may not be practical to try to rebalance if they are constatnly working and changing the system. May be something you have to live with. Hard to say without seeing the system. Do you own or rent? If you rent, you certainly have a livability issue and may be able to withold rent, don't of course know, you would need to check that out before you did anything. If you become enough of a pain, you might get some better results, but may not like the rep you get. You could try the mechanical contractor direct, they may not be totaly aware of the problem. Try giving them a call and see if you get anywhere. Ya sometimes can catch alot of flys with a little sugar