Hammering from Biasi SG Oil Boiler
This house was built in the late 80s in upstate New York. The boiler has been replaced since then but there has always been a hammer for one of the stacks in the house. We recently opened up a wall in one of the bedrooms to see if securing the pipes would make the hammer better but there was no real change to the sound (see video below). I imagine there is something fundamentally flawed with the setup of the system but would be good to know where to start with the investigation. The sound is loud enough that it's not possible for someone to sleep in this bedroom in the winter time.
Video with sound (click the unmute button to hear the sound): https://imgur.com/a/oil-boiler-hammer-tJZxGfA
Comments
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Sounds like expansion noise, how long does it persist?
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Almost certainly expansion. Or contraction! Those long copper risers do expand as they heat up, and somewhere they are just a little bit too tightly attached to something. Can be difficult to get find — never mind get rid of — but if you can slip a bit of plastic, as it might be from a milk jug, between the pipes and the wood at each place they are attached it might help. No guarantee!
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England0 -
Sensor fully inserted in well? Faulty Hyrostat? Gauge work? (would hang my hat on that either)
Sounds like it is overiding, 180 degrees is the magic number
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Sounds like typical expansion noise. Unfortunately I believe that the way all those pipes are tightly secured will only make things worse. The pipes need a little bit of wiggle room for when the expansion happens as they heat up. It's recommended that whenever you have to drill a hole for the piping to go through the the hole needs to be larger than the pipe to accommodate the expansion. A 3/4" pipe needs at least a 1" hole.
I'd would check any penetrations that the pipes run through and make sure the pipes have plenty of wiggle room. If possible I would put some armaflex insulation on the pipes as a shim where they pass through any penetrations.
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It happens at the start of a heating cycle. You can hear steam / water going through the pipes and the pipes heat up as the hammer starts. The hammering lasts 5 to 10 minutes and then stops.
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Good to know. It seems like the approach we took recently to secure them is a step in the wrong direction. We will try tracing out the pipes to see if we can find the location where it is too tightly attached.
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Good to know. Will check these. With the hydrostat reporting 164, how would this create an environment in which this noise occurs? And what do you mean by "it sounds like it is overiding"?
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Glad you think it's expansion noise as well. We can easily remove what has been secured so far.
That makes sense re: 1" hole for a 3/4" pipe. Great suggestion re: armaflex insulation. I hadn't considered this before but that makes a lot of sense.
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Don't remove your bindings, just loosen them, then add the milk jug plastic slips to allow for free movement
known to beat dead horses0
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