Extremely Loud Banging in Pipes/Shaking Floorboards

Stinger710

Hello all,



I'm looking for some advice. I moved to a new apartment on 9/1/12, and now the the heat in the building is being used, we have been experiencing the most intense, disruptive banging noises coming from directly below our apartment. The banging shakes the apartment, and during the night, I can feel a powerful shutter while lying in my bed. I also use 32 decibel ear plugs and the noise breaks right through them. I have gone from getting roughly 7 hours of sleep a night, to about 3 (if im lucky).



We've been told that our boiler is brand new, but it's being used with 80 year old pipes that are full of debris. The debris is what is causing the loud noises and shaking. Our landlord told us that there have been workers at the apartment a few times in the past week, and they've been scraping debris from the top of the boiler to "fix" the issue. In thinking about it further, it doesn't seem that "scraping debris from the boiler" is going to stop the issue since the noises are being caused by what is inside the actual PIPES. Does that make sense? I just want to have a good argument when we do speak to our landlord about this again. We are planning to break our lease if this doesn't stop in the next few days.



If anyone has any insights to offer, please let me know. It would be greatly appreciated. I just want to be armed with the correct information and be able to argue my way out of this lease if need be.



Thank you so much,

Stinger710

JStar

Noise

Is this two pipe steam?



Banging is caused by steam and water meeting each other where they shouldn't. I'd suspect sagging pipes, or improper piping techniques.

Jamie Hall

There could be...

any of a number of possible problems -- whether it's one pipe or two pipe -- which could cause the banging.  They all boil down (sorry) to the same thing: there are slugs of water in the steam pipes where they shouldn't be, and getting pushed along by the steam until they hit something hard -- like an elbow or a T or something like that.  Then they go bang.



It is NOT "debris" in the pipes.  It is NOT "debris" on top of the boiler or anywhere else, for that matter -- although that does suggest poor housekeeping.



It is, most likely, something amiss with the new boiler installation.  To go further, though, we'd really need photos of the boiler and the near boiler piping -- that is to say, all the piping around the boiler up  to the connections with old piping.  It would also be useful to know if the new boiler was set with its water level at the same elevation (plus or minus a couple of inches) as the old boiler.  It is remotely possible that someone messed up the pitch on the old steam mains, but rather less likely than someone messed up the near boiler piping...

TomM

haha

scraping debris from the top of the boiler  :-)  if that's what the techs have been telling the landlord, maybe they can install muffler bearings too. 

-

post some pics of the boiler bro

nicholas bonham-carter

Poorly maintained system

Just tell the landlord, that every bang under your floor is more money sent to the fuel company. This system, besides being noisy is wasting a third of the money spent for fuel.

When this system was first installed, it would have been quiet, efficient, and even.

Early residents would not have tolerated .water-hammer such as you are experiencing.

Please advise your landlord to come to this site, so we can help diagnose the problems, and advise on the repair.--NBC