I am throwing myself at your mercy and great wisdom, as if I'm unable to fix this problem, we are going to have to move house.
We live in a ex-authority ground floor maisonette (i.e., we occupy the ground and first floor, with an identical maisonette above us on the 2nd and 3rd floors). The property is roomy and solid, but it has a major flaw, the gas and water pipes for the maisonette above run through our place. Gas is not a problem, but the water is Really Noisy.
Whenever the people upstairs open up their taps, or flush the toilet, there is very loud 'whooshing' sound that is audible from all around our house. When taps are opened full this turns into a screaming sound, then as the taps go off, there is a bumping, rattling noise (possibly from their ancient back boiler). A bit of noise we can put up with, but this is so loud it is hard to talk over it, and without fail it wakes us up. The problem is compounded by the fact that our neighbours are shift-workers, and so need to be using their water at all hours.
The neighbours above have only recently moved in, and the property is in a poor state of repair. Could it be that all of the taps need repair/replacing? Is it possible dodgy washers are causing this noise? Is it ever possible to silence water running through pipes? Where the pipe runs through our bedroom, I've boxed it in, with soundproofing foam, but it makes no difference at all.
I can only think of two things that I can do:
1) Plead with my neighbours (or offer to do it myself) to investigate all their taps and replace where necessary.
2) Replace the copper pipe that runs through my property with a section of plastic. Am I mistaken in thinking that instead of the metal pipe to transmit the sound, the plastic would insulate better against the noise?
Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as we can't take it much more...
Cheers!
For what it's worth, here's a drawing of the layout:
We live in a ex-authority ground floor maisonette (i.e., we occupy the ground and first floor, with an identical maisonette above us on the 2nd and 3rd floors). The property is roomy and solid, but it has a major flaw, the gas and water pipes for the maisonette above run through our place. Gas is not a problem, but the water is Really Noisy.
Whenever the people upstairs open up their taps, or flush the toilet, there is very loud 'whooshing' sound that is audible from all around our house. When taps are opened full this turns into a screaming sound, then as the taps go off, there is a bumping, rattling noise (possibly from their ancient back boiler). A bit of noise we can put up with, but this is so loud it is hard to talk over it, and without fail it wakes us up. The problem is compounded by the fact that our neighbours are shift-workers, and so need to be using their water at all hours.
The neighbours above have only recently moved in, and the property is in a poor state of repair. Could it be that all of the taps need repair/replacing? Is it possible dodgy washers are causing this noise? Is it ever possible to silence water running through pipes? Where the pipe runs through our bedroom, I've boxed it in, with soundproofing foam, but it makes no difference at all.
I can only think of two things that I can do:
1) Plead with my neighbours (or offer to do it myself) to investigate all their taps and replace where necessary.
2) Replace the copper pipe that runs through my property with a section of plastic. Am I mistaken in thinking that instead of the metal pipe to transmit the sound, the plastic would insulate better against the noise?
Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as we can't take it much more...
Cheers!
For what it's worth, here's a drawing of the layout:
