Loud bang/crack this morning

[elimn8or]

Hi all, this morning at about 5.00am - 6.00am I heard a load bang/crack. I have no idea where it came from but dissmissed due to our sometimes noisy central heating system. When my wife woke she mentioned this bang to me and now im on a mission to determine its cause. Ill eliminate a few possible causes before i continue. I have checked all electrical devices/sockets and all still work. I have also looked for any burn marks around electrical sockets but nothing visible.

Our central heating has always given me a few concerns with prior problems being: Kettling, pipes that bang and water hammer. I seem to have resolved these through the usual measures: draining central heating system, adding descaler and inhibitor into header tank etc. I do still get some noise in the pipework which seems to emminate from the boiler since whenever I seek out this noise, it always leads me back to the boiler.

Anyway, I heard a loud bang this morning and it came from inside my house somewhere. Can a boiler make a one off loud bang? If so what could be the problem? Maybe its electrical? PS: the boiler is set to come on early in the morning and did more or less coincide with the bang (give or take 30 mins), but alas we do have hot water as well as central heating. ANY IDEAS PEOPLE, ANYONE EXPERIENCED SOMETHING SIMILAR?

 

[baxpoti]

What make / type of boiler do you have?

 

[elimn8or]

Im at work so ill get back to you later on that - i have a bad memory but i know its fairly old. Its a gas boiler fed from a header tank in the loft.

 

[RigidRaider]

If it's any help, our house also gives out one almighty bang sometimes in the morning as the heating is warming it up. It seems to come from the attic, all I can think is that it's something expanding in the structure of the ceiling or the joists. We do have a crack in the plaster, right across the bedroom ceiling, which we can never fill because there's always movement. The attic is heavily insulated so I reckon it could be the large area of plaster expanding as the room warms up, then something suddenly gives like tectonic plates causing an earthquake!

Our house is very well founded - it is built on a massive concrete platform, which took 145 tonnes of concrete and there are no signs of cracking or settlement in any of the walls.

 

[elimn8or]

It could be something like water hammer, like when the water cycle shuts down and you get the inverse shock wave through the central heating system, but this bang had a higher pitch than the usual deep low frequency bang off water hammer. Our house is pure timber frame and everything has a little spring to it. I have checked my walls and ceilling and can see only minor cracks along where the plasterers tape is used to cover the joining regions of neighbouring platerboard before skimming - i.e where wall meets ceilling, the tape appears to gradually peel away leaving long straight lines similar in appearance to cracks. I may have to wake up early tomorrow to see if it happens again.

 

[Softus]

We do have a crack in the plaster, right across the bedroom ceiling, which we can never fill because there's always movement.
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Our house is very well founded...

Er, my house is founded in an ordinary way, and there's no internal movement or cracking.

elimn8or - does the noise occur every morning?

 

[elimn8or]

The loud mid-range frequency bang occured this morning only. I do usually hear the central heating heatup up at this time from my bedroom as well as a little vibration in the underfloor piping, thats usually it though. Ill get details of boiler later.