Clicking/Ticking in Wall

[Peaky22]

Hi all,

For coming up to a year now I have had a sporadic clicking noise in my bedroom wall. I live in a 3rd floor new build flat (2008) on a busy road and it seems to coincide with large vehicles passing by (the building often shakes when this happens .. #London)

The clicking/ticking sounds like someone very quickly using one of those tally counters that bouncers use to track numbers in a club! It is very rhythmic so I'm ruling out a pest issue and yet it is too irregular (ie. no pattern in time of day) to be anything to do with water heating or electrics. Also the wall contains no pipes so it can't be to do with expanding pipes etc. (I only have electricity in the flat so it's not a central heating thing either)

The wall is partly external with one half of the other side being in my kitchen/living area and the other half being on my balcony. The only remote link I can think of is that I had a new extractor fan fitted roughly the same time it started and the pipe goes over my bedroom and the vent is on the balcony. But the noise doesn't coincide with the extractor fan being on and they only replaced the unit, they didn't mess with the pipe so I can't think that that does have anything to do with it. I have an audio recording of the clicking noise on my phone but not sure if it's possible to add to this post.

Any thoughts welcome. I really don't like the idea of having to punch a hole in the wall to look inside but it does need investigating because it wakes me up regularly!

Thank you!

 

[tel765]

Long shot, but expansion and contraction of Cu water pipes can sometime cause clicking as the pipes rub together.
If it is pipe expansion then it can be difficult to remedy because the original fault was lack of sufficient and correctly space pipe clips allowing a number of pipe runs to be jammed together especially at sharp bends.

 

[Peaky22]

Yeah I read that it could be that. Thing is the sound is so quick and sporadic, it's not like it clicks gradually for an hour. It does it in short bursts every now and again (as I said, seemingly whenever a bus or lorry goes by) which suggests to me it's a vibration thing. But vibration of what I don't know!

 

[bernardgreen]

I had a new extractor fan fitted roughly the same time it started and the pipe goes over my bedroom and the vent is on the balcony.

It might be a back draft shutter in the outlet from the extractor fan.

This type is in the duct

This type is on the outside wall

These shutters can rattle when gusty winds blow onto the outlet, the air pressure wave from a large vehicle would have the same effect.

 

[^woody^]

With cavity walls, whether timber frame or masonry, slight movement in one of the leaves can cause a click noise from the ties or tie clips as they spring. More common when the sun heats up parts of the wall or elevation unevenly, but possible with reverberations from heavy traffic.

 

[Peaky22]

Hmm yes, re the ventilation duct the outside grate is a solid plastic one so it can't be that moving. But I don't know if there is a duct like that one inside the pipe. But then the clicking itself is very much in the middle of the wall, not from the ceiling above so I don't think it would be that.

I'm guessing there's not much to be done if it is expanding pipes or movement or something? Just stick in some earplugs is it?