Plumbing Pipes Making Noise? Professional Toronto Plumber's advice

Homeowners get really concerned and annoyed when their plumbing pipes start making groaning or singing noises. When this happens in the new house, they suspect that their plumbing contractors cut the corners and did not install their pipes right. This may not necessarily be the case. Here is one of the situations that a homeowner has faced:

"I went to my son's house and heard a singing noise his plumbing pipes have started making recently. His house is two years old and has never exhibited this condition until recently. I noticed there was an expansion tank installed in his basement. We tried altering the pre-charge of air in the tank, but couldn't make it work."

We can see that this homeowner is very savvy because he continues troubleshooting and eventually finds out that a potential root cause of this problem could be change of water pressure in pipes:

"We checked the water pressure at a outside spigot and it was 100 psi. and we set the expansion tank pressure to 80 psi. This is what the instructions said is the max for this equipment. I'm baffled to figure out what has changed to cause this condition.”

Professional Toronto plumber contractors, we can tell right away that water pressure of 100 psi is too high. In fact, it should not be more than 60 PSI. We would recommend that these men check water pressure at their neighbour houses (if they are on city water) and compare the notes. 100psi will cause premature failures to the toilet valves, faucets, dishwasher, and other plumbing equipment. You will get all kinds of noises with 100psi in the system. So, if there is a pressure reducer in the system, set it to 60psi. If not, install one.

Pressure regulator looks like a bell shaped thing at the main to the house. There is a screw on top with a locknut that can regulate water pressure. Some houses don't have pressure regulators, but they should as they can prevent over-pressure leaks. Regulators are cheap, but you will need a professional plumber or city's water department specialist to install them.

In this case, the pressure at the neighbour's house was exactly 50 psi. A homeowner called the water department and they dispatched someone to his house right away. The water pressure regulator has gone bad and could have caused all kinds of plumbing failures and water damage to his new house.

When you have any plumbing problem, react quickly. Recovering from the water damage to your house may cost you thousands of dollars.