Buzzing through party wall victorian property

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Ceepank

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Hi there!
We need some help to identify a low hum / buzz thought the party wall of our victorian property. We have just moved in to a 1-bed first floor conversion, with one flat below and 2 flats adjacent to us. The noise is a low hum which seems to originate in the party wall in the lounge near to the bay window (front of property). The noise carries along the wall through the back room (bedroom) and its feels like the whole property is humming / vibrating. While this noise is not extremely loud, it is persistent and very annoying. Generally seems start at around 7:30am each day and is on and off throughout the day, sometimes up until midnight. Often the noise continues for periods of around 30 minutes at a time, stopping for a couple of minutes, before starting up again. We have spoken to the neighbour in the upstairs adjacent flat, and he does not have any equipment or system running that could cause this noise, but he can hear the same buzz in the wall (we thought it was coming from his side, and he thought it was coming from ours!) Both upstairs flats have the boiler situated at the opposite end to the noise (back of the house) so we don't think it can be this. Both downstairs neighbours say they can not hear the hum, so it appears only to be affecting the upstairs flats. Please help! Is an electrician the best person to assess the noise and find the source? Or should we be looking for someone else? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we are reaching the end of our tether!

 
Fan in bathroom?

Given the hours you say you can hear it I'd say a fan was a good contender for your problem, people using the bathroom for a shower in the morning, then using the loo during the day, it all fits,it could be the overrun on the fan is why it seems to be running for 20 to 30 minutes.

 
Hi phil

Thanks for your reply.

Well we had thought about this, but we spoke to the neighbour and their bathroom is situated at the back of the flat, as is ours. The noise appears to originate in the front wall of the lounge near to the bay window - which seems a strange location to hear a fan or boiler or similar... you can't actually hear the noise at all in the bathroom or kitchen, which are right at the back of the properties ... it's so frustrating that the noise is in the lounge and going through to the bedroom, as these are generally the quiet areas of the house where we would like to be able to relax / sleep! The humming sometimes persists for several hours at a time (with breaks of a minute or so in between starting and stopping) so this also makes me think it's unlikely to be a bathroom ... though I guess it's possible it is some kind of fan ... perhaps in another room ... I just can't think what on earth else it could be

 
Sound is a funny thing, sometimes it can appear to be coming from totally the opposite direction from where it really is, could it be a heating pump, or something similar? you'll have to ask some questions to get to the bottom of it, but people will need to think carefully.

I remember 2 incidents involving faults on alarm systems, on the first one, the alarm went off every weekday at 4.30 pm, I asked the customer what happened at that time. He was adamant nothing happened, "we don't get in from work until 5" he insisted, a bit more digging and I discovered his heating came on at 4.30 and it was a cable picking up an induced current that was causing the alarm to trigger.

The second one involved a guy who we'd installed a system for, again it went off around the same time on certain nights of the week, he insisted nothing happened on those nights, it turned out he had a coal fire and banked it up before going out, the flames leaping up suddenly were triggering the pir, it was obvious when he thought about it, trouble was he didn't think.

It could be absolutely anything, the trouble is people don't think of things making a noise, mention a hoover and they'll say, "oh yes, but we don't hoover at that time, yet they'll forget about the electric can opener, because they don't think of it as loud, yet it could resonate and be heard elsewhere. I'm not saying it is a can opener, nobody would open that many can's, but you get the idea.

I remember a security alert at an airport, a buzzing noise could be heard in the cargo hold of a plane, it was emptied and all the luggage checked, the cause was found to be a "ladies toy" that was in a suitcase, now you'd never expect one of those to be very loud would you?

 
My guess would be central heating circulating pump, which would fit with the timings, and as it's connected to lots of pipework will carry the noise to many places.

I doubt there is much you can do (one reason why I will now only live in a detached house)

 
I don't know ... I guess I will have to ask the neighbour... he didn't mention it though and they are usually situated in the hallway rather than lounge I would have thought. Is it possible a fuse bard or meter could make a noise?

 
my sons computer fan vibrates nicely through the ceiling of my Victorian house. I suspect many other items like TiVo boxes may have similar fan cooling???

 
I don't know ... I guess I will have to ask the neighbour... he didn't mention it though and they are usually situated in the hallway rather than lounge I would have thought. Is it possible a fuse bard or meter could make a noise?
Ah  if yours is in the hall  then probably theres is too. 

But yes , various electrical stuff can start buzzing, humming, vibrating  etc .  We fitted a doorbell transformer on a rewire once ,  a constant low frequency humming , drove everyone mad. 

 
Got to admit I was thinking Tracey Cox  too...
I  won't ask, I'm still recovering from learning about "steak and bj night", and I haven't a clue what XD means on a text, so I ain't going to worry about who Tracey Cox is, lol

 

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