Washing Machine Water Hammer Fix. |
Question And Answer Category: Plumbing |
Question: |
| Dear Blankhelp Team, I have a slight problem with water hammer. The whole house isn't suffering from water hammer, it's just my washing machine. It seems as the washing machine goes through its cycle, the fast opening and closing of the fill valves seem to cause the pipes in my house to jump. Water hammer might not be too bad, but hearing the piping jump around is unnerving. Can you help? Do I have to hire a plumber to put in a big water hammer arrestor, or is there a do it yourself solution. Thank you, i hope you can help with my water hammer problem. Steve |
Our Advice and Answer: |
| Dear Steve, We check around with our team and we have a person who went through the same problems. The water hammer in his house seemed to be only associated with his washing machine and some toilets refilling. This is what he did. Since the noise seemed to come strongest from his unfinished basement, he thought securing teh piping as well as possible would limit its movement. So, he picked up a set of pipe hanger, little ones with plastic clips and a nail. The noise diminished but wasn't eliminated. He had to weight the options to eliminate water hammer and it seemed that a couple more steps could be performed. 1. Limit water pressure entering the house with a pressure reducing valve. 2. Install a large residential water hammer preventer accumulator. 3. Install point of use mini water hammer arrestors. 1 and 2 were clearly not a Do It Yourself project for our team member. So he opted to try #3 first, and see if the water hammer was fixed. Mini Water Hammer arrestors were found at one of those big package stores, not the orange one but the blue/red one, in the plumbing section next to washing machine hoses. The installation of these mini water hammer arrestors (one for the cold water inlet and one for the hot water inlet) were fairly easy, just followed the directions, and installed them on the washing machine hoses. One tip, if you don't have wire reinforced anti-burst washing machine hoses, this is a good time to convert them over to them. After installing these mini water hammer arrestors, the washing machine water hammer was eliminated, and the side effect was that water hammer associated with toilet fill valves, seemed to have disappeared. So based on experience, the do it yourself solution of point of installation mini water arrestors, was easy and cheap (about 10 dollars each). Now we have peace of mind we aren't damaging piping, or plumbing components with water hammer's effects. Good luck with your own diy solution, and please tell us how it worked out. The BlankHelp Team |
Plumbing Help and Advice Notice: |
| Treat all advice, information, and suggestions as UNprofessional help. Like all professionals who help you, you are worked with on a one on one basis. Because we are not meeting with you, we cannot provide any professional advice. So treat this site is solely for informational and educational purposes. Terms and Conditions |
