DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

I have a noise problem associated with water pipes leading to a boiler. The original 50's boiler was downstairs. I have a new combi condensing boiler fitted in the old airing cupboard and is directly fed from the cold main.

The sound of the water rushing through the pipes is very high and I am looking to a way of reducing it.

The noise seems to be highest in our spare room which is now let to someone and she finds it intolerable. We were aware of some noise, but it wasn't until we actually listened while running the hot water tap that we realized the level of noise.

I have tried turning the inlet tap down to reduce the flow of water, this just makes everything slower and not much benefit.

I am sure there must be some sort of answer to this. Maybe someone else has had this experienced sorted.

Here's hoping and thanks.

There is a part for this; it goes on the water main.

It’s a pressure-reducing valve.



But it could be a faulty stopcock

The problem is that old pipe work don’t like to be messed around with and will play up if disturbed.

Thanks for the quick reply, but I was told that pressure control valves may not make any difference, the cost is ok and if someone can confirm that this is a pretty good bet, preferably from experience I will give it a go..

Regards

If your property has very high water pressure, you could fit a pressure reducing valve which may reduce the noise, but not significantly reduce the flow but of course this is not guaranteed to work.

If just one tap is involved in making the noise, you could try replacing the washer as I have known this to reduce the problem.

That makes sense, I understand that it is water turbulence that creates the noise, and that copper pipes are excellent transmitters of noise. I think I should get a plumber in for this job as the last thing I want is a flooded kitchen (my soldering is prety crap and I want to avoid compression fittings.

Thanks for your feedback.

Taffyman, I am replying to you from Canada and may not fully understand your plumbing arrangement but I have experienced a similar problem which turned out to be too many right angle turns in the copper pipe length.
The solution was to replace as much of the copper pipe as possible with a continuous length of flexible tubing made for that application.
Hope that helps. BTW, my email address, as noted on this site is incorrect and should be <shiraz881@hotmail.com>