Unidentified noise from wall - help please!

[bigcliff2]

Hi, this is my first post on here, looking for some help with an annoying noise issue in my house. As it's a noise, obviously help will be limited but I'm struggling to work out what could be going on here...

For the past week or so I've been hearing a noise coming from my wall in the living room and I'm really at a loss to work out what it could possibly be. Key facts:

1. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where it is but it's always from a certain part of the room (if not the exact same point). In that general location, there's a wall that's been filled in before I moved in. Also, it's from the general direction of where the house joins with next door.

2. The sound is always exactly the same - I'd probably describe it as a "grinding/clunking" noise. That's the closest description I could give. It lasts for about one second at most, and is a reasonably loud grindy/clunky noise. It could happen once every hour or sometimes it'll happen twice close by. Basically, it's unpredictable in frequency. It seems to happen more at night but that's possibly because I'm in that room at night and the world is quieter.

3. It's not connected to anything like the toilet being used, taps, heating on or off, etc.

4. As the weather has been good over here recently, I don't think it's related to wind blowing.

5. As it's always the same noise, I don't think it could be anything living but as I don't have any experience of that I couldn't say for sure.

6. There's no dimming/flicking of lights or other appliances when it happens.

7. I haven't heard it in any other room that is either above the room in question or connected to it.

8. I originally thought that it might be to do with a small fridge in the room on the other side of the wall but I unplugged that and it still happened.

I've tried googling using various descriptions of the sound but nothing seems applicable to what I'm hearing.

Any ideas? Or even any ideas on what to do next?

Thanks very much in advance.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Could it be .......................... supernatural?

 

[honda]

Could it be from next door?

 

[bigcliff2]

Could it be .......................... supernatural?

Thank you for replying.

I don't believe in that type of thing. But I guess it COULD be.

 

[bigcliff2]

Could it be from next door?

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, that's possible. Though I haven't actually asked them as I think it's too loud to be from there.

One of the problems I have is identifying the exact location of the noise as it requires standing in an awkward part of the house and just waiting for it to happen. Then if you move slightly at the wrong time, you've missed it...

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Possibly a neighbour turning a gas fire or the like on or off? I used to have a neighbour who complained about that - mind you she complained about everything, so maybe the sound was a bit too loud for her when she had her ear pressed against the glass on the party wall!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

My money's on ............................ the supernatural.

 

[mattylad]

Big mice?

 

[KenGMac]

Thermal movement as during the evening you have the heating on, as does your neighbour.

Whatever is creating the sound will only happen when the temperature dictates?

just a thought

 

[longdogs]

Plastic window frames, soffits, expanding/contracting??

 

[Dave54]

You haven't got a safe deposit facility in the basement have you?
Just a thought!

 

[Flyboytim]

It sounds like a neighbour's water pipe noise.

We suffered from a neighbour's very noisy waterpipe in one bedroom only, every time they used their shower first thing in the morning - which was at 6am weekdays. They were unaware of the noise - because the occupant of the adjoining bedroom where the noisy pipe was embedded in the wall - was the person using the shower.

At other times of day, the noise was unnoticeable, presumably because the air bubble in the pipe which caused the "knock" had moved along the pipe to somewhere it could not oscillate to cause the noise.

It was not a one second grind-clunk in this case but a long low howl which lasted while the shower was on, but only for the first shower of the morning. But, a grind-clunking sound is typical of an air lock knock.

I'd check with the neighbour to see if they are aware of the noise, and if it coincides with water use by a particular device, like a toilet or a tap in a particular location.

A common site for air bubbles in pipes causing noise are Tee junctions near Bends or Elbow joints with changes from horizontal to vertical orientation.

There is an element of craft in relieving bubbles that cause knocking, but if the water is turned off at the stopcock and all taps are opened to empty the pipes, and all toilets are flushed, then the stopcock turned on just a little, so the pipe system refills slowly, turning off taps when they have started to flow steadily from the bottom to top of the building, then it is often possible to displace all air in the pipework.

Another method is to introduce some detergent into the supply water to change the surface tension of the water - when the air lock bubble is stressed as it vibrates, it becomes a foam which is carried away in the flow, instead of a bubble that keeps reforming causing the noise repeatedly.

 

[longdogs]

Is it loud enough to record it and put it on youtube?