constant noise in radiant floor and hot water baseboard system

annoyed!!!!

Last year we had a radiant heat system installed on the first floor of our home. We had hot water baseboard installed in the upstairs of our home. Both systems were installed using pex tubing. The plumber who did the work assured us that this was the best system. $15,000.00 later I have the noisiest heating system in the world. My 2 year old daughter gets up 3 or 4 times a night because the noise scares her and my 9 year old son even complains about being awakened. I know exactly what they are talking about. In the heating season, I never get a full nights sleep. This is rediculous!! Is it possible that something is installed improperly? Is there anything that we can do to reduce the noise?

jp_2

explain?

what type of noise are you talking about?

give some details, constant noise, every 15 minutes noises?

bangs, rumblings, sounds of running water?????

Brad White_9

Radiant is known for silence

What comes to mind from what you are describing is too much flow, possible mis-alignment or turbulence being transported through the piping. (Water is dense and transmits noise very well.)

Too much flow is one part, the other is, it may be too large a circulator that is throttled ("balanced" a term of art) causing that energy to be made into sound waves, simply stated.

Roughly how many circuits do you have and what does the nameplate label on the circulator say? Manufacturer, model number, Watts or HP, those kinds of things.

Any diagrams given to post for us? How long has this gone on? Is this the first season? And what does the installer say?

EDIT: With subsequent posts, the creaking, ticking, yes, we all know it is expansion noise and as JP and Mark said, no OD Reset.

With solid fuel firing, constant circulation is key with P/S injection. Hard to control the primary of course, but the secondary should be simple enough -in concept...

I wonder if it is P/S now or is it directly coupled to the solid fuel boiler?

annoyed!!!!

The noise is more like a ticking, creaking or sometimes a knocking. It is not constant. It is only when water is circulating in that loop. I can hear it more on the second floor where we have the hot water baseboard, but the pex tubing to the hot water baseboard runs up the outer walls of our childrens first floor bedrooms, therefore you hear it in their walls as well. I can hear it in the radiant heat pex tubing under the floor, but not as often and not nearly as loud. "Our installer says that it is the normal expansion and contraction of the pex tubing.

annoyed!!!!

I do not know all of the specifics on the system. My husband would have that info. I do know that there are many loops. The wood/coal furnace we use to heat the water, then circulator pumps (I think 3) send the water to my husbands shop/ office, and across the driveway to our roughly 2000 sq.ft. house. Our installer says that the noise is just the pex tubing expanding and contracting. This is our 2nd heating season with this system. It seems to be noisier this year than last year.

jp_2

sounds like

sounds like 'normal' operation with thermostats, no outdoor reset.

Mark Hunt

Your installer is correct

that is exactly what the noise is. The issue is how to "fix" it.

It can be done by controlling the temperature of the water going to the system AND putting the system on constant circulation. Pex pipe has a huge expansion rate and the higher the water temp, the greater the expansion. So when the system is not calling for heat, the water in the tubing cools down. When the system calls for heat, it gets blasted with VERY hot water from the boiler and the Pex expands and you get woken up.

If the system was controlled, the expansion rate of the tubing could be minmalized to the point that you probably would not hear it. With constant ciculation, the water in the system will always be "heated" to match the BTU load for a given outdoor temperature. As the temp outside drops, the water temp goes up BUT the water never just sits there cooling down.

Example: Outside is 60 degrees and the system pumps start running.(They are now controlled by outdoor temperature, not thermostats) A heat loss calculation determines that your baseboard zones need 110 degree water to match the heat loss when it is 60 degrees outside. A mixing device then allows 110 degree water out to the baseboard. If the outdoor temperature drops, the water temp increases. BUT!! It will increase from 110 to the next target temp, NOT from room temperature water. Less increase in the water temp = little or no expansion noise.

I will not kid you, this fix is not cheap and I can guarantee you that your installer did not include this in the price you paid for the system. Talk to them and see if you can come to a mutual agreement when it comes to the costs to remedy the situation.

One more note. If your installer has no clue about what I just posted, you may have to find someone else.

Mark H



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Unknown

I think jp's on it. You are circulating very hot water I bet, through pex, with regular thermostats... and some in OUTSIDE WALLS?

Every time that zone shuts down, the water loses heat fast, and contracts fast. with high temp water, every time it turns on, it gains heat fast and expands fast.

short of tearing out the pipe, about the only thing you could do here is switch to a control strategy with outdoor and/or indoor feedback to lower water temps and do more constant circulation as well.

Brad White_9

Absolutely.

I edited my post above. Seems there is an opportunity to tie the radiant into cruise control while it is attached to a semi-runaway train.

Eager to see photos of what connects the boiler to the tubing....

Bill Clinton_5

noise

The noise is coming from tube moving in contact with wood structure. This happens because the tube expands and contracts with temperature change, which is happening all the time in normal operation.

It is essential in installing a system like yours that the tube be kept away from wood with isolating plastic accessories. With non-barrier tube, you can get away with some contact, but I'll bet you have tube with EVOH oxygen barrier on the outside. That barrier is "tacky" and causes lots of noise as it binds and releases with temperature change.

Several years ago, we changed from non-barrier tube to barrier type and created several systems like yours before we learned what the problem was. Ironically, we made the switch because we were trying to deliver a better product.

We are now very careful about isolating the tube from the structure, and have found a tube that has a thin layer of polyethylene applied outside the EVOH: This is miraculously effective.

There are few remedies for your problem. We had to remove sheet rock from one job to fix it. Some customers are still living with noisy systems.

Installing constant circulation and outdoor reset may help. If you have a multiple zone system though, I have doubts as to the practicality of this approach.

About all I can offer is my sympathy. Sympathy to to contractor too. I been there: I done that. I paid dearly. You just don't know until you know and that's sometimes too late.

Bill

Dirty Hands Dale_2

pex noise

The pex lines might be zip tied tightly together in the walls, instead of the expansion noises against the wood? If they go back to a manifold and had zip ties to keep them tidy. I have seen radiant pex lines zip tied together make a lot of ticking and creaking noise when the boiler gets fired off, and the lines are cool.

I like the pick-up talons for pex made by Souix Chief, they are Tube Talons but clip onto two-thirds of the pipe, keeping it off the wood surfaces and stay on the pipe by themselves speeding up installs.

Mark Hunt

What?!!?


Am I Irish??

Mark H

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[Deleted User]

No charge for the noise...

Oh, you DIDN'T want noise??? Well, that 'll cost you more money.

Think of it as dark grayish white noise... At least you don't have to guess as to whether or not your heating system is on.

(I'm being extremely facetious, these other guys are heading you in the right direction.)

If it makes you feel any better, I'd probably have charged you $30,000.00 for a noiseless system. And I'm not being facetious about that.

ME

Weezbo

Reduce the water temps , reduce the noise....

and put it on constant circulation in the field...

after reading the rest of the replies....funny how we are all saying the exact same thing...*~/:)

It is like everyone reads the post , thinks,' i know the easiest way to get that across' then eeek! we all say the same thing )

[Deleted User]

Watch your temps on Talons...

THey used to only be good up to 140 degrees F. Seen more than a few of them completely melted down from 200 deg. F water temps.

ME

Jeff Lawrence_25

Blasting hot water?

Maybe not a good subject line, but that's all I could think of...

Your wood boiler probably 'simmers' at 180 degrees plus and blasts out the hot water. Others have mentioned OutDoor Reset (ODR) and that's a good idea.

My main question: Is there a heat exchanger between the wood boiler and the house system?

Contractor

dirty hands and bill i believe got it right. he may of attached the tubing incorrectly and bc water transfers sound very very well you hear the noises through out the house. its also another reason why you hear it more on the upstaris radiant (longer runs inside the wall = more clips or ties that were done incorrectly) i get calls quite a bit from customers complaining of noises through out their house. the installer used metal clips or put the pipe into very tight areas then when they ran their shower that pipe would expand. then they hoped into bed and it contracted for an hour or so while they tried to fall asleep. constant recirc will minimize the noise but ill bet its fastened incorrectly (sorry not a cheap fix).

annoyed!!!!

Thank you for all of your suggestions. I showed them to my contractor. He agreed that constant circulation would help. He is installing a mix valve on the loop that circulates to the upstairs. I hope it works.

annoyed!!!!

I asked our contractor about an outdoor reset. He said that this was not an option because our system has a wood/coal boiler, not fuel burning system. We do use indoor thermostats to control our heat

annoyed!!!!

We do have a heat exchanger in the house.

Tom Bradd

Fix

, another good fix could be a Taco Radian Mixing Block one for each system. gives you outdoor reset all the control you need and easy to use and install. This wont break the bank. Best of luck to you.

Mark Hunt

System reset


not boiler reset.

You reset the system water temperature according to outdoor temp. The boiler(s) are not affected by the reset and burn at whatever temp they burn at now.

Mark H

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Dirty Hands Dale_2

noise in floors?

I am an apprentice, so i know the install procedures but I just started trying to pay more attention to the controls.
The controls are critical, I think ME and Brad White are most likley to lead you in the right dirrection Annoyed.

In the title it says the floors are noisy as well, that might be because the subfloor was not cleaned properly, the panels were not cleaned properly before the tube was installed and/or there was not any aluminum silicone in the tracks.

Also not enough fasteners holding the floor down, or panels were installed too tight can lead to those noises.

Not cheap to fix.

Buderus makes a good mixing station as well as the Taco Bloc.

S Ebels

All these guys are barking up the same tree

And they're correct.

It is indeed expansion/contraction noise and the only real solution is to install a control that provides variable water temperature to your pex. This will allow your tube to warm up gradually as the weather changes and keep the pumps from cycling on/off with the thermostat. It's like cruise control for your car. Your current system is set up as if you were flooring the accelerator and then shutting the car off and coasting.

We've used very little pex for other than in slab applications just for this reason. Even with reset of your system water temps you'll still hear the occasional creak, tick or pop. Composite, multicore or PAP tubing is a much better choice for your type of system as they have a much lower expansion ratio than regular pex. What's happening is that your pex is "growing and shrinking" when the water inside of it heats up and then cools down. Don't bother trying to tie it down, it will find somewhere to expand because it must.

Brad White_9

Mark is Right

System Reset, not Boiler Reset.

I am hoping your contractor's statement is one of "I Cannot Do It", versus, "It Cannot Be Done".

It can be done, and must be. It is the only common thread among the points discussed that would mitigate if not eliminate the perceived noises caused by expansion.

Once the system distribution has settled in a given range of temperature, expansion and contraction all but stops.

When weather changes, the incremental rise or drop in temperature is relatively small compared to on-off circulator control. A degree or so change in ten minutes versus 100 degrees rise in five minutes. Think about it.

Comfort and even heating are the bonus.