I'm staying in a three story home with radiators and old plumbing (probably copper). I'm a guest and it's a rental with a management company (they fix a few things here and there but not most things).
The noise happens intermittently all night every night. Likely also intermittently all day but I'm not usually in the bedroom at night. It's quite loud. I can hear it in the ceiling (or maybe walls) and it seems to come from different areas in tandem (like a call and response). Best description would be a clicking sound.
I was thinking of trying to bleed the radiators but seems like it could also be the supply plumbing instead, so I'm not sure where to start or what to do. I don't know much about plumbing noises. There's at least 11 radiators in the house.
Suggestions? Get ear plugs?
Best Answer
Even bleeding the systems won’t normally stop the clicking & creaking as the pipes heat and cool the pipes expand and contract causing the majority of the noise, on steam systems there are DA tanks that remove the air , it sounds like normal expansion noise to me , I would not experiment at bleeding a system until I knew if it was a hot water or steam system. Most residential systems I have seen are hot water but I ran into a few low pressure steam systems in a high end neighborhood that we were installing gas furnaces. I thought only commercial was allowed live steam so I would be careful and probably get ear plugs.