What is this infuriating mystery noise coming from inside my walls?
January 6, 2024 7:05 PM Subscribe
Does this sound like an electrical wiring issue, or something else?
I live in a small studio flat which is really just one room of a big old Victorian house, split in to several small apartments, with a shared hallway and stairs.
A week or so ago, I had an electrician put in some new wall outlets in my apartment. A few days ago I started hearing a noise that I can’t find the source for but is driving me insane. I *think* it’s inside the walls, but it’s hard to tell. It doesn’t seem to be coming from any one area of the flat over any other. It varies in volume from very loud to fairly quiet. It can be heard from the shared hallway outside, and because the volume isn’t consistent it’s hard to say if it’s definitely coming from inside my apartment vs the walls in the hallway outside. The noise is intermittent, starts suddenly and I would describe it as like a whirring, grinding, revving sort of noise, maybe like a big fan going very fast. Lasts for differing amounts of time, sometimes it’s a few times in a row and then stops, sometimes it’s continuous for a couple of minutes. Time in between doesn’t seem to be a pattern that I’ve noticed. Both night and day.
My first thought was one of the new outlets might be somehow faulty, so I’ve switched those off with no effect. Could it be something to do with the wiring? Is the recent electrical work a red herring? I can contact the landlord to call him back to have a listen and see if he knows what it is, but it would help if I had more of an idea what might be causing it before I ask for it to be fixed.
I live in a small studio flat which is really just one room of a big old Victorian house, split in to several small apartments, with a shared hallway and stairs.
A week or so ago, I had an electrician put in some new wall outlets in my apartment. A few days ago I started hearing a noise that I can’t find the source for but is driving me insane. I *think* it’s inside the walls, but it’s hard to tell. It doesn’t seem to be coming from any one area of the flat over any other. It varies in volume from very loud to fairly quiet. It can be heard from the shared hallway outside, and because the volume isn’t consistent it’s hard to say if it’s definitely coming from inside my apartment vs the walls in the hallway outside. The noise is intermittent, starts suddenly and I would describe it as like a whirring, grinding, revving sort of noise, maybe like a big fan going very fast. Lasts for differing amounts of time, sometimes it’s a few times in a row and then stops, sometimes it’s continuous for a couple of minutes. Time in between doesn’t seem to be a pattern that I’ve noticed. Both night and day.
My first thought was one of the new outlets might be somehow faulty, so I’ve switched those off with no effect. Could it be something to do with the wiring? Is the recent electrical work a red herring? I can contact the landlord to call him back to have a listen and see if he knows what it is, but it would help if I had more of an idea what might be causing it before I ask for it to be fixed.
My guess would be that maybe the act of installing the outlets made a more effective conduit for sounds from another unit. The description sounds like a motor of some sort. The whirring makes me think something with a compressor.
posted by Ferreous at 7:41 PM on January 6
posted by Ferreous at 7:41 PM on January 6
I would ask the other tenants if any of them hear it. Befriend them and text them when the noise starts to see if they know the cause. Could it be something like a vacuum cleaner or massager?
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:42 PM on January 6
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:42 PM on January 6
The only noises I've ever heard wiring make on its own are the sputtering hisses and crackles announcing a rodent suicide squad's attempt to burn down my house. I can think of no plausible mechanism by which new wiring would whir or grind.
My best guess is that your fridge, or somebody's fridge, or maybe a bathroom exhaust fan or furnace blower, is now expressing its displeasure at having a painful motor bearing ignored by your electrician.
posted by flabdablet at 11:44 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
My best guess is that your fridge, or somebody's fridge, or maybe a bathroom exhaust fan or furnace blower, is now expressing its displeasure at having a painful motor bearing ignored by your electrician.
posted by flabdablet at 11:44 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
If your sparky needed to move your fridge in order to put in the new outlets, it's possible that it's now sitting in a slightly different position than before and that what used to be inconsequential internal compressor vibration is now making it buzz against something.
I have an uninterruptible power supply in my bedroom that started driving me completely loopy about a month after I first installed it in exactly this way. It sits on a big block of closed-cell foam now.
posted by flabdablet at 11:52 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
I have an uninterruptible power supply in my bedroom that started driving me completely loopy about a month after I first installed it in exactly this way. It sits on a big block of closed-cell foam now.
posted by flabdablet at 11:52 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
The noise is intermittent, starts suddenly and I would describe it as like a whirring, grinding, revving sort of noise, maybe like a big fan going very fast. Lasts for differing amounts of time, sometimes it’s a few times in a row and then stops, sometimes it’s continuous for a couple of minutes.
My first reaction is someone somewhere in the building is doing a lot of drilling into the walls. Drilling noise travels very far through walls and it can be really hard to locate the source.
When it happens, go out of your appartment and walk around and see if you can hear the noise, if it's louder on another floor, etc. You may think that it can't be a drill because people wouldn't do DIY in the middle of the night - my ex-neighbour who would hammer nails(??) into the wall at 12am begs to differ. That said it may also be a fan or other electrical equipment that's vibrating against the wall.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:57 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
My first reaction is someone somewhere in the building is doing a lot of drilling into the walls. Drilling noise travels very far through walls and it can be really hard to locate the source.
When it happens, go out of your appartment and walk around and see if you can hear the noise, if it's louder on another floor, etc. You may think that it can't be a drill because people wouldn't do DIY in the middle of the night - my ex-neighbour who would hammer nails(??) into the wall at 12am begs to differ. That said it may also be a fan or other electrical equipment that's vibrating against the wall.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:57 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
1. If you have access to the main switch for your flat (not for the entire building), and if temporarily turning it off won't harm anything or anyone in your flat, wait for the noise to start and then turn off all the electricity to your flat and see if it stops the noise. If the switch is somewhere weird, have someone else turn it off while you listen. If the noise continues after you switch off all your electricity, it's an external problem. If the noise stops and starts when you turn your own flat's electricity off and on, it's coming from your flat or from something related just to your flat. Be ready to reset clocks and stuff.
2. See if anyone else in your building has noticed the noise. Four ears are better than two.
posted by pracowity at 4:15 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
2. See if anyone else in your building has noticed the noise. Four ears are better than two.
posted by pracowity at 4:15 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Ages ago, we lived in an apartment. At some point, we began hearing a noise in the wall very similar to what you describe — a whirring, grinding, revving sort of noise. It was intermittent and varied in length. Sometimes it was short, staccato bursts, sometimes that led up to a continuously whirring for a few minutes.
Eventually, maintenance was there when the noise was happening, and it turned out to be a fan (or somesuch) in some part of the hvac mechanical crap running between the apartments. I’m betting your noise is something similar, and its arrival right after the new outlets is merely incidental.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:22 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Eventually, maintenance was there when the noise was happening, and it turned out to be a fan (or somesuch) in some part of the hvac mechanical crap running between the apartments. I’m betting your noise is something similar, and its arrival right after the new outlets is merely incidental.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:22 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Best answer: When your electrician cut into drywall or plaster to install your outlets, maybe debris fell inward and met some mechanical house device (like the HVAC in Thorzdad's answer)? The sound is the debris being ground into dust?
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:32 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:32 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: thanks everyone, helpful to know that it’s not likely to be directly related to the outlets being installed, will do some further investigating and check with the neighbours as suggested
posted by chives at 7:47 AM on January 7
posted by chives at 7:47 AM on January 7
What is your heating system? I recently had something I'd describe this way, and it's the bearings failing on the recirculating pump that is connected to the furnace; radiator pipes are a *very* effective conveyance for sound like this. I imagine other forms of heat would also have analogues -- anything along these lines would be very apparent if you can go listen to stuff in the furnace room / basement.
posted by advil at 4:19 PM on January 7
posted by advil at 4:19 PM on January 7
Best answer: Another source of motor bearing noise whose existence most people probably don't think about is circulation pumps for hot water systems. If your large house has only a single hot water service, and yet it takes only a second or two for the hot water to run hot after the tap is first turned on, it might be fitted with one of those.
Hot water circulation pumps are very small compared to HVAC equipment, but they are by their nature closely coupled to the pipes in the walls and as advil points out, pipework is about as good at moving sounds about as water.
They also tend to run 24x7, so if a bearing has just begun to fail, the noises I would expect it to make will be intermittent and random and will become both louder and more frequent over time.
posted by flabdablet at 7:40 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Hot water circulation pumps are very small compared to HVAC equipment, but they are by their nature closely coupled to the pipes in the walls and as advil points out, pipework is about as good at moving sounds about as water.
They also tend to run 24x7, so if a bearing has just begun to fail, the noises I would expect it to make will be intermittent and random and will become both louder and more frequent over time.
posted by flabdablet at 7:40 PM on January 7 [1 favorite]
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posted by ixipkcams at 7:22 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]