LESLIE: On our way, now, to Virginia, where Scott’s got some moaning pipes under the house. Tell us about the noise, when you hear it.
SCOTT: It started about six months ago. Seems like when the – me and the wife use the upstairs bedroom late at night – or bathroom, rather – late at night, go to bed, 10 or 15 minutes later after we take a shower and everything, sounds like the pipes start moaning for about 10 or 15 seconds then they quit for the rest of the night. Well, I’m hoping it’s the pipes.
TOM: (chuckling) Yeah.
SCOTT: No ghost or something.
TOM: Unless you have a stalker under there. That would be very scary. Well, Scott, I’ll tell you exactly what’s causing that. In the situation you describe, this makes perfect sense. What happens is, when you’re using that bathroom and you’re running the hot and the cold water – especially the hot water – the pipes that feed that expand and they’re probably fed up from under the house somewhere. And as they expand, they stretch. And then, when you turn the water off, they contract. And that sound is the pipes rubbing against the wood frame of the home. And it’s very, very common. The way to correct it is to tighten up the connectors where the pipes are strapped to the beams. So is this house on a crawl space?
SCOTT: [Sounds like it, yes.] (ph)
TOM: Alright, well what you need to do is go down to the crawl space, find the plumbing pipes that feed the bathroom and put some additional strapping on it so that they’re tighter to the beams and they don’t expand and contract and stretch across the beam. Because that plumbing pipe being drawn across the beam, as it shrinks or as it expands, is what’s making that cricking sound and also sort of that moaning sound. It’s not ghosts or goblins. It’s simply your plumbing system expanding and contracting.
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