Knocking central heating pipes driving me mad

[Alfie25]

I’ve been living in my house almost a year now and the banging/knocking pipes from the central heating system (warming up and cooling down) is starting to drive me mad. The house is approx 25 years old and the pipework installation will be original. The problem is mainly focussed in the master bedroom so that’s where I’d like to start. On one side of the room, the pipes run almost the entire length of the room and are in line with the floorboards (tongue and groove). The floorboard that runs directly above the pipes has lifted slightly, and when you knock on it (even gently) you can feel it touching the pipes underneath. I can only think years and years of the pipes heating up has loosened the board a bit and caused it to lift. The problem is the pipes must also have lifted a bit as well, so if the floorboard is secured back down then it will flex the pipe underneath.

Any suggestions on how to tackle this? I guess it’s a case of re-clipping/re-securing the pipes, so the floorboards are going to have to come up. The question is how best to lift tongue and groove floorboards that are literally touching the pipes underneath? And once the boards are lifted, will it just be a case of flexing the copper pipes downwards and clipping them, or should they not be secured tightly? Really disappointed at the build quality of this house but hey ho!

If I call someone in would I be looking at a plumber or a joiner? Would a plumber want this sort of job?

 

[polesapart]

You lift T&G floorboards by first running a circular saw set to 3/4 of the floorboard thickness along each side of the board you want to raise, or by smashing the tongue with a hammer and bolster.
Wrapping the heating pipes in felt where they pass through a notch in the joist, cutting the notch a little deeper if need be, will generally get rid of of ticking and groaning noises caused by the expansion and contraction of pipes wedged against solid timber. An alternative is to repipe the offending section in plastic.
Any plumber/heating engineer can do this for you. Let him hear the noise first!

 

[polesapart]

Apologies for bold type above. I wanted to highlight only cut notches a tad deeper.

 

[Alfie25]

Thanks, I guess to cut a deeper notch you need to remove the pipe or could it be carefully done with the pipe in place?

With the floorboards, once the tongue and groove has been cut, how do you then cut across the board safely? You'd normally saw it up against the joist but here the pipe is directly under it. Would it be better to take up the board next to it first, then go in sideways to prise the board up with the pipes under it?

I'm not keen on re-piping the section in plastic, besides if its tight now with soldered copper fittings, there wouldn't be space for the plastic push fit connectors would there.

 

[Diyisfun]

You can cut deeper with the pipes in place, just saw down a few mm & use a chiesel to cut the base of the trough, even a wide blade screwdriver will work.

 

[Alfie25]

It feels like the pipes are bowing upwards so although I could wrap some felt round them, wouldn't they need to be clipped down? Is there a way of securing pipes that are routed through notches in the joists?

 

[Diyisfun]

If you can get to it, you could put a block of wood on the side of the joist & put a clip on that.

 

[joe-90]

Nobody uses felt anymore.

 

[TheVictorian]

Another sweeping statement.

I use felt, therefore you are wrong.

 

[joe-90]

Sooey told me that it went out in the Stone Age.

 

[sooey]

If you can get to it, you could put a block of wood on the side of the joist & put a clip on that.

You don't clip pipes in joists.

 

[CBF]

the pipes were laid in the joists & you are only allowed to cut a certain amount out of them, the joists have since shrunk but because the pipes are connected to rads/drops etc they won't move which is why they are tight on the floor boards.

you can see this by pulling the carpet back upstairs & looking at the gap under the skirting boards, when these were fitted they would have been touching the floor

 

[Alfie25]

the pipes were laid in the joists & you are only allowed to cut a certain amount out of them, the joists have since shrunk but because the pipes are connected to rads/drops etc they won't move which is why they are tight on the floor boards.

you can see this by pulling the carpet back upstairs & looking at the gap under the skirting boards, when these were fitted they would have been touching the floor

Thanks for the info. So are you saying I shouldnt cut the joists any more than they are already? I could try and wrap some felt aroud the pipes where they pass through.... but before I get to that stage I need to get the floorboard up, so going back to my original question, how do I do this if there are pipes literally touching the underside of the board? I need to cut the board as they've never been lifted before.

1. How do I cut the floorboard with pipe(s) directly underneath?
2. How do I re-secure the floorboard? Normally you screw a 2" x 2" piece of wood to the joist don't you, then screw the board back onto that, but obviously I can't where there's pipes going through the joist.

 

[Alfie25]

Sorry to come back to this one so late on but I put it off (like many jobs!). My questions above still stand.

1. How do you lift floorboards that literally have pipes touching them underneath. The pipes runs in parallel with the floorboard.

2. How do you refit the boards? Normally you'd screw a batten to the side of the joist wouldn't you? And then screw the floorboard down onto the batten. I guess you'd just have to screw 2 smaller battens either side of the pipe - and make sure they aren't touching or it could make the situation worse!!

 

[polesapart]

1 You lever them up, either from the sides or starting at a cut end. A bolster reduces splitting. Obviously you avoid putting the business end of any lever where it could crush a pipe.
2 By convention and common sense installers generally notch in the middle of any raised board, leaving an inch or so each side to refix .