The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: Spectra on February 03, 2014, 11:49:23 AM
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I moved into a new home several months back and my drains are quite loud.
The master bathroom drains behind the wall in my living room (happens to have TV mounted on it) and I can hear it fairly loud each time the toilet is flushed and when the shower drains. It is a PVC pipe that I have access to in the Sub-Basement nad the sound is the liquid hitting a T at the sub-basement.
Can I dampen the sound by replacing the PVC with a quieter material or would any of you recdommend outer treatments for sound dampening.
-Thanks
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The quietest would be cast iron, because it's thick and dense. My plumber uses this for interior drains where noise might be an issue.
Another option would be to wrap the PVC with some sort of insulation, but this would require opening the wall and using something that would not adversely affect the PVC. I would suggest a self-adhesive tar like material like dynamat but I have no idea if it would affect the PVC. Just filling the stud bay with mineral wool might be enough.
Another solution would be to reconfigure the plumbing so the intersection is a smoother transition; i.e. a sweep wye instead of a tee.
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I asked the same question of plumbers and got the answer Greg gave you: Dynamat or similar around the pipe.
Getting some mass around the pipes you can reach without tearing up walls may dampen it enough for your purposes. It may not...
I decided it didn't bug me as much as I thought. These days we've shifted some stuff around and I'm rarely near that pipe when anyone else is upstairs running water.
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Any chance you'd be interested in hanging a nice rug or mural or drapes (something heavy) behind the TV? That might be a cheaper solution and should muffle the sound somewhat.
I would guess the drain is 3" so even if it is in a 6" wall there won't be much room to put insulation around it. Cutting the wall open might only help a small amount.
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Thanks mustachians. I have decent access through the crawl space that I can wrap about 6 feet of the pipe without removing any material (other than some fiberglass). I'm going to look more into wraping the pipe but if it too expensive I'll probably learn to live with it.
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Turn up the TV or insulate the wall. Leave the pipes alone. The sound of working plumbing is a thing of beauty like a water fall. The TEE versus TEY is a silly discussion the angle has to be 90 either way. Tee is 90 and TY needs a 45 added.
Cast Iron ha ha not since 1970s.
Keep Smiling (you have plumbing that works) Letro Master Plumber and Master Chemist.
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The master bathroom drains behind the wall in my living room (happens to have TV mounted on it) and I can hear it fairly loud each time the toilet is flushed and when the shower drains. It is a PVC pipe that I have access to in the Sub-Basement nad the sound is the liquid hitting a T at the sub-basement.
Maybe the real problem is that people are flushing toilets and using showers while you're trying to watch TV...
You could replace the sub-basement PVC with a segment of cast iron, or try for a larger diameter of piping from just above the T down to the sewer connection.