I have replaced 90% the plumbing in my 1927 single story house in California with copper pipe. A 1″ supply line runs from the front of the house to the rear and is attached to the underside of the floor joists. At this point it connects to 3/4″ galvanized and goes underground to the water heater in the detached garage. From the 40 gallon water heater 3/4″ copper runs back to the house.
I am having several issues. I do not know if these issues existed prior to replacing the plumbing.
1) When the shower is turned on, the adjacent bedroom is unbelievably loud. Loud enough to wake up a sleeping person. Any ideas of how to muffle the sound?
2) When in the shower, when the hot water is turned on at any other location in the house there is a change in the shower temperature water. Am I kidding myself to think that there is a fix? Is it just not possible to not have this problem in typical residential plumbing systems?
3) This is related to #1, the sprinklers with automatic valves connect at the front before the water line enters the crawl space under the house. When the sprinklers go on it is also unbelievably loud. In sounds as if a freight train to coming through.
Any ideas?
Replies
" it connects to 3/4" galvanized and goes underground to the water heater in the detached garage."
Replace the galv with copper.
" When the shower is turned on, the adjacent bedroom is unbelievably loud."
This can be a result of poor decorating and choice of paint colors. It rarely wakes one up because they can't even get to sleep. Noise from vibrating pipes can have the same result. The pipes are not sufficiently secured or the brackets are not tight.
"When in the shower, when the hot water is turned on at any other location in the house there is a change in the shower temperature water."
By code, newly installed shower bodies must have a pressure balance/ anti-scald feature for this reason. In new construction I also try to limit the number of branches coming off a 1/2" run. I prefer to have all my 1/2" branches coming off a 3/4" run. Less chance for pressure drop.
"When the sprinklers go on it is also unbelievably loud."
Your fastening schedule is inadequate or your brackets are not tight.
loud, do you mean vibration like a faucet washer vibrating (like a freight train)? That can make a tremendous amount of noise and can be corrected by replacing the washer (you can trouble shoot this by adjusting the valve position to listen for a change in the sound). I had one on a hose bib faucet that shook the whole house. If you have valves in your system that use compression washers I'd strongly suspect one of them (I like to use ball valves for this reason, and because they work so much better and last longer without maintainence than compression valves or even gate valves, in my opinion).
Or, if you mean the sound of the water flowing thru the pipe (smooth, rushing sound like a jet engine) you may have mounted the pipes too solidly to your house frame. There are isolating clamps that you can buy to separate them and prevent your house from amplifying it (or you can just wrap rubber sheet around the pipe at each clamp).
If the sound is something else you'll need to be more specific.
Hope this helps.
Norm