Push fit plastic joints on copper pipes? Is it a good idea?

[Dan Robinson]

So you tell her the there was a huge problem and that you have fixed it.

Then she starts hearing noises again.

What then?

Good intentions aside I think you are as crazy as this poor woman. Stop tormenting here and get on medication before she does go insane.

 

[bernardbeemer]

Bloody hell people, everyone has this poor woman written off as mentally ill!
I do hope that you get to the bottom of this if only to prove that she ISN'T mad.
The idea of power off, water off etc is great and sure to prove a point either way.

Old people can be fickle and annoying at times but lets not all jump to the conclusion that they are crackers. I bet you this lady is smarter than alot of people ae giving her credit for and i'll also bet that when you actually find the reason for the noises she will probably say 'Told you so'

Good luck.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

So you tell her the there was a huge problem and that you have fixed it.

Then she starts hearing noises again.

What then?

Good intentions aside I think you are as crazy as this poor woman. Stop tormenting here and get on medication before she does go insane.

Good point there,
Well ok may be you are right, if don't find anything wrong, then i will have to be frank to her and tell her to continue to see medical experts, and they will be able to help her for sure, but she must go and seek help to banish this noise, thats all i can do for her.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Do the on/off tests by all means bud... But don't try and flannel her.

There was an interesting piece of Tinnitus on radio 4 this afternoon. It maybe worth a listen on iPlayer.

 

[Agile]

There was an interesting piece of Tinnitus on radio 4 this afternoon.

Did you manage to hear that with the radio switched off?

 

[Dan Robinson]

I was doing a very unsafe speed down a country road that my brother had managed to overturn his (as then) little runabout car by hitting the brow of a hill the wrong way a long long time ago.

Was on the way to what turned out to be a very pleasant diagnostic visit to a Norwegian lady with a goosed Honeywell Smartfit controller.

All I could think about (having not met the lady at that point) was "damn why is iTunes soooooo quiet?" Must research decent quality POWERED headphones.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

I think anyone would know how to differentiate a noise if it was internal,
So in my opinion, if one was suffering from a Tinnitus, he would not deny that he or she is hearing noise in their ear/head (internal)

I have also suffered from short burts of noise in my ears from time to time, it is not tinnitus, but occurs because you tried to block your sneeze, or you had water got into your ears whilst swimming, or showering, or you just listened to very loud music, and this noise does not last for very long, usually from a few minutes to some hours, but no one can get mixed up as to its origin or source, it is clearly in the head.

But isn't it strange that she don't hear this noise outside her house, and at the same time no one else can hear it in her house, a friend of mine suggested that may be when she steps outside the house, the ambient noise from outside could well be masking off her tinnitus, yes that is quite possible, when she goes to visit her friends at their house she does not hear any unusual noise apart from the people talking, TV on in the background, etc,

Another clue is, her noise gets louder and quite disturbing when she goes to bed, I have previously suggested that she buys one of these blood pressure monitors from her local chemist, doesn't cost much, and it may be worth checking her BP when the noise is at its worst!

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Update

Got there today to start looking into her noise problem, first of all Igot there quite late, 6pm!

She said how ironic today she did not hear any noise!

The boiler was on as her place was quite warm, and I could hear the humming or whirring (very faint) from the boiler.

Turned her entire elecyricity off and the whirring or humming stopped altogether, pin drop silence.

After about 5 minutes, we switched electricity back on, and I stated to measure any ac voltages across matal surfaces like kitchen sink, taps, any copper pipes against real earth which i ran a seperate cable directly from the mains switch board, the incoming supply is earthed to the outer sheat of the incoming supply and is connected to consumer unit, so all sockets appeared to be earthed OK, checked using a mains wiring tester, as well as taking ohms reading.

So my theory of electrolysis is out of the window!

Was going to renew at least 4 of the plastic joints, but when I looked around the entire installation, there are quite a lot more, it is a hash of job, copper pipes joined with plastic pipes using plastic joints and elbows,

Sop it was quite pointless to just change 4 joints when there were quite a few more, as we were running late, we decided that to do a proper job will require a lot more time and many more joints to replace and tidy up the plumbing as at the moment it is in a state.

What appears to be once was a garvity fed boiler with loft tank and a hot water storage cylinder, so that came off and the all the pipes in the cupboard where the hot water cylinder used to be, have been bridged and looped back as the cylinder is no longer in use due to combi boiler.

Nor did I feel any strange phenomenon, took a magnetic compas, and nothing strange recored on it, took some pictures with a camera and hoping may be camera might see something that we cannot see! You never know, and photos reveal nothing unusual.

Showed the lady how to turn the mains off at the mains switch, and the next time she hears this noise, she will phone me and I will remind her to get a torch ready and switch her mains off completely and waut for 5 to 10 minutes and i will ring her back and can she still hear the noise then, we will have to see until then.

We discussed the fact that it may well be her ears and tinnitus can come and go, and again she said fair enough, but what she can't understand is that as soon as she steps outside her house it stop, either she is lieing, or just not hearing it because of a higher outside ambient noise.

I also took a length of 22mm copper pipe and touched one end to various places on her central heating, whilst placed my ear at the other end, I could hear some sounds but mainly that of the whirring pump, planes were passing very low and close by, and I could hear the planes more focused through the pipe rather than through her windows closed.

As I was parked outside her house, about to drive away, i realised how close she is to the planes, you can virtually see all the plane windows ,

We touched he flow pipe which distributes the Ch flow upwards through the ceiling and runs through the 1st floor joists, we could see it is literally touching the ceiling and hence any minute pump viberations can significantly amplify, we could feel viberations on the flow pipes, and strangely whennever a plane flew past, the viberations appear to increase in intensity, we could feel this just by touching our fingers, my mate who came with me noticed this first, and I confirmed, plane noise does something to the pipes and makes the viberations more prominent.

We may have to possibly look into this area to see if we can isolate the pipes from touching any surfaces directly and use some sort of cusion betwen supports, like pack some rubber packing to absorb viberations from the pipes being transmitted to the ceiling boards and joists.

Overall, no specific faults found, and I can only suggest that the next time she hears noise, turn her power off, and then see what happens.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and inputs. trying to help a lady who says she is being tortured by this noise and yet won't accept that it is tinnitus.

She made us lovely dinner, and had a pleasant chat, so can't say she is insane. You would know when you meet an insane person, though she is a little forgetfull, and we can all be at her age.