|
|
Post by slacker 🐨 on Jan 17, 2020 10:26:41 GMT -5
So the mrs. and I are watching TV night before last and suddenly there's this LOUD bang on the house. I say "on the house" because it sounded like something substantial hitting the roof. Louder than I'd expect if someone hit the roof with a baseball bad. You could feel it in the floor.
This happened several more times along with a few much less intense banging noises in other parts of the house.
We've only been in the house since July, so our first winter. The temperatures dropped from 35 to 5 in about 6 hours, so I'm guessing this was some sort of expansion/contraction thing, but it was loud enough that it was pretty alarming. I can't for the life of me imagine the mechanism for producing that sound. My initial reaction was that a substantial tree branch fell on the house.
Anybody else have this happen? Got any clue what movement would cause that?
|
|
|
|
Post by Mfitz804 on Jan 17, 2020 10:52:27 GMT -5
Ghosts. Your house is haunted, dude.
|
|
ECS-3
Wholenote
Posts: 170
Formerly Known As: ECS-3
|
Post by ECS-3 on Jan 17, 2020 10:55:48 GMT -5
I hate to say this, but years ago that same thing happened to my house. It shook the entire house. During a snowstorm. I actually went outside expecting to find part of the roof collapsed.
The next summer I found out what it really was when my sewer backed up. The line from the house to the street had settled enough that it finally snapped. Easily repaired but they had to dig up my front yard to fix it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chris Greene on Jan 17, 2020 11:06:34 GMT -5
We had a house in Boise as a second home and it made creaks and bangs as the weather changed. Creeped me out. We got rid of it after three years.
|
|
GmanNJ
Wholenote
somewhere deep in the swamps of Joisey
Posts: 315
Formerly Known As: Your Friendly Neighborhood Gman
|
Post by GmanNJ on Jan 17, 2020 11:06:53 GMT -5
do you have baseboard heat? Pipes can bang if your expansion tank went you will get this all over the house but loudest at the tank. If your zone valves are installed backwards then they close in the opposite direction of the flow of water since the zone valves are fighting the flow of water and it can cause a great deal of vibration and banging.
|
|
|
|
Post by slacker 🐨 on Jan 17, 2020 11:07:06 GMT -5
I hate to say this, but years ago that same thing happened to my house. It shook the entire house. During a snowstorm. I actually went outside expecting to find part of the roof collapsed. The next summer I found out what it really was when my sewer backed up. The line from the house to the street had settled enough that it finally snapped. Easily repaired but they had to dig up my front yard to fix it. We just had the line from the sewer to the street inspected last summer prior to purchase. No guarantees, but it looked fine at the time. |
|
|
|
Post by slacker 🐨 on Jan 17, 2020 11:08:13 GMT -5
do you have baseboard heat? Pipes can bang if your expansion tank went you will get this all over the house but loudest at the tank. If your zone valves are installed backwards then they close in the opposite direction of the flow of water since the zone valves are fighting the flow of water and it can cause a great deal of vibration and banging. Nope, it's forced air heating. |
|
|
|
Post by WireDog on Jan 17, 2020 11:12:13 GMT -5
That's why I have a trusty shooting iron nearby. It would have been in my hand within seconds. My dog would have been interested as well, and he'd give me a briefing, lol! Even being sure that it's almost certainly something like you described, I would be ready for anything.
I just cannot help myself; I gotta be ready.
|
|
|
|
Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Jan 17, 2020 11:30:31 GMT -5
"I'm guessing this was some sort of expansion/contraction thing." SPOT on! If it sounded like something up in/around the roof area, it was probably a phenomenon known as 'truss lift'. Over time, it's quite common for cracks to develop in sheetrock joints around the perimeter of ceilings on the roof level of a wood-frame structure. Many people wrongly assume this is caused by "settling" of a structure due to gravity, but it's actually the opposite: the ceiling structure lifts from the wall sections. This is caused by changes in temperature and humidity through the seasons. As the wood in roof trusses dries out in winter months, the wood shrinks and contracts a little, lifting ceilings. It doesn't always result in cracking sheetrock; in these cases it's pretty scary because the wood moves against itself where trusses rest on the top plate of a wall panel and it sometimes sounds like a gunshot or something heavy landing on the shingles. It can be really loud and quite alarming. If you do get cracks in sheetrock and don't immediately repair them, you'll notice they usually disappear in summer months when temperature and humidity levels cause the wood to expand a bit and everything goes back into place. Truss lift is nothing to be concerned about because it does not compromise the integrity of a wood structure; the damage you often see (sheetrock cracking) is strictly cosmetic in nature. Roofing trusses made with engineered laminate/composite wood rafters and solid 2X rafters generally don't lift. The ones built up from a web of 2X lumber and gusset plates (spiky steel plates) or fish plates (through-bolted type) are the ones that suffer most from lift problems because they're dimensionally less stable despite being incredibly strong. More good info and some diagrams here: www.carsondunlop.com/inspection/blog/truss-uplift/ |
|
|
|
Post by Leftee on Jan 17, 2020 11:32:41 GMT -5
Are my mom and sister in your garage?
|
|
swampyankee
Wholenote
Fakin' it 'til I'm makin' it since 1956
Posts: 713
|
Post by swampyankee on Jan 17, 2020 12:24:14 GMT -5
Although the roof on our ranch style home is not trussed, we still hear creaks and pops from above the ceiling when the temps change. Probably not as drastic or disturbing as the noise you describe, but still enough to perk me up to listen.
As long as the roof isn't caving in on us I don't worry about it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Taildragger on Jan 17, 2020 12:25:37 GMT -5
Probably just the captives in your secret, subterranean dungeon getting restive...
|
|
|
|
Post by slacker 🐨 on Jan 17, 2020 12:38:29 GMT -5
Probably just the captives in your secret, subterranean dungeon getting restive... nah...we keep them drugged. |
|
