Walls and Ceilings - Loud Cracking and Popping in Ceiling and Walls

I am new to this site and was just reading some of the complaints about loud noises in ceilings and walls in wood framed homes.
I would be very interested to hear if anyone has come up with a fix for this problem???
My home is 12 years old and the noise issue was not disclosed to us by the previous owner. (we have lived here 3 years)
We have had 3 structural Engineers out to look at our home, but all of them seem to have no answers to fixing this unbearable problem. We know the noise is activated by thermal differences.....we just need to find out what it is we can do to fix it now. Using "White" background noise is not an option, as the noises in our home would wake the dead, that's how loud these popping sounds are. (like firecrackers going off) These noises seem to be coming from the ceiling drywall and the walls throughout the house. Even cooking on the stove generates the ceiling in the kitchen to start popping.
Any suggestions from your forum would be so greatly appreciated, as we have been trying to solve this mystery for 3 years now with absolutely no success.

During a season when you are neither heating or airconditining do daily ambient temperature fluctuations cause the pops?
What part of the country are you in? Is the roof a truss roof?
Are there cracks in the walls?
What is the exterior finish?
What kind of roof do you have.
Does the wind blow where you are?
Is there a basement? Crawl space? Slab on grade?
What kind of heating system?
Do the pops occur when you are using heat then occur again as things cool down?
Have any modifications been made to the house in its history?
How frequent are the pops?
Can you cause it at a certain temperature? How much differential sets it off?
If the temperature is stable is it quiet?
Surely you have ruled out all the possible mechanical possibilities like the ducts flexing, water hammer, flues expanding and contracting?
Can you isolate the part of the house where it happens most?
Are there any off beat construction methods in the house?

During the summer, we still get some popping, but not nearly as severe as during the heating season.
We live in Tucson, Arizona.
We have pre-engineered trusses, however, we do not have the flat bottom chord type as we have vaulted ceilings. (Scissor Truss)
There are no cracks in the walls or ceiling.
The exterior finish on our home is Stucco with a tile roof.
The wind does blow here in the desert, but not on a daily basis.
Our home is built on a concrete slab.
Our heat is forced air natural gas.
The popping and cracking occurs when the furnace is running, and also after it shuts down and is cooling off.
There have been no modifications made to this home.
After we have retired to bed, we have recorded the cracking and popping noise in the kitchen/family room area, and it occurred better than 10% over an 8 hour time frame.
We can make the noise happen by turning up the furnace as little as 1 degree. I might add that the noise sometime happens without anything running.
"Yes" we have ruled out mechanical possiblitites, such as ducts flexing, water hammer, and flues expanding and contracting.
The noise happens throughout the entire home in the ceilings and walls.
We do not know of any "offbeat" construction methods in the house.

kdreil,
I have the same issue as you have described. Everything you have described reminds me of my problem. My home is 7 years old and has always popped since we purchased 2 years ago. We live in Central Ontario Canada and our basement is finished. Our problems are mainly in the winter when the forced air furnace is running. I've reduced the frequency of bangs by having our temp constant rather than fluctuating. The original owner told us they had it looked at and were told by an HVAC guy that it had to do with the ductwork popping. I'm somewhat convinced this is what is causing it but the bangs seem almost too loud to be just a duct popping. I wish I had an answer for you but I will be following this thread hoping to resolve my issue as well. By the way, you mention that you've ruled out ducts flexing, water hammer etc. How do you know that it isn't one of these things? Just asking. Good luck.

Where is the furnace?
Do you have a down draft furnace with the ducts in the slab?
Is the furnace on the roof?

Have you tired running the system for a day or two without the air filter in place?

As the furnace is running is there a series of pops or only one as it warms.
Do the pops vary in volume or frequency Like one every so often or like popcorn and is the number of pops in a given time pretty consistent or does it vary?

When you turn the heat up it is a few minutes before the fan kicks in and starts blowing warm air. Do the pops start once the fan runs or when the flame first lights in the furnace?

This all sounds like duct work noise except for the fact that you can initiate it with as little as the range. If you turn on the oven does it do it or only the stove top?
Are you running the stove hood exhaust when it happens?

Does the noise vary if all the heat registers are open compared to if say half are closed?


Is the house wood frame or steel?

BigSwede
We have had all of the necessary inspections done on our home to rule out duct flexing, water hammer, etc.
Within a week of moving into this home 3 years ago, the noise was just unbelievable, so that's when we investigated all possibilities that could be causing this.
Our noise is definitely not coming from the furance duct work.
The sounds are more like "cracking wood" which made us think it was a truss problem or popping nails or something else horrible going on in the attic. Three different Structural Engineers that have looked at our house have assured us that the house is structurally sound and that the roof isn't going to cave in on us.
When we actually got up into the attic ourselves and listened, the noise was loud inside the house, but in the attic the noise was coming from underneath the insulation (along the ceilng) and they were faint popping sounds, which now makes us suspect that this could be a drywall problem, which tends to be heat activated. It takes very little heat to start the cracking sounds. Even using the stove or toaster will generate the noise in the kitchen ceiling.
It sounds like you are experiencing the same problems - hopefully we can get some good advice and suggestions on this site for a possible fix for this. As you well know, it is very unsettling to live in a house with loud constant noise.

Is your house wiring Al or Cu?

Tightcoat
The furnace is in the garage and the noise happens soon after the blower kicks in. The heat vents are in the walls near the ceiling.
This is a wood framed home that sits on a concrete slab.
We have tried adjusting the vents to fully open and partially closed, and there is no difference in the loud cracking and popping noise.
When the noise first starts, it is random all over the house and it sounds like a string of firecrackers. The noise does vary, so it is not consistent in the sense that when we turn the furance on we can count on it happening in a particular room.
This also happens when nothing is running....just occurs out of the blue for no apparent reason.
The noise happens in the kitchen with both the oven and the stove top on. We have not had the hood range fan going at the time of the noise.
We have not tried running the furnace without the air filter in place. The furnace people have been out to inspect all of the ductwork, etc., and everything checked out A-OK.

have you tried an exorcism?

Tightcoat
If you are asking if we have aluminum or copper wiring, we have copper.

Tightcoat
That is funny that you mentioned exorcism, as several folks around here have suggested that our house might of been built on an Indian burial ground!! :eek:
For right now we're sticking with the mechanical theories.

When you figure out what this is please report back.
I'm very curious but I have no ideas even after you answered the questions I had.

I still lean toward something in the air handling system I think if it were in the drywall or the framing it would show up as some kind of physical manifestation.

Are the pops ratatattat sounds or single pops?
Are they booms, pops or snaps?

Have you posted this problem elsewhere? Maybe in a framing forum and I still think an HVAC forum?

Let us know when you figure it out ans tell us how you solve the problem, too.

Sounds like a great project for a local college student in acoustics. He could even make a mint later.

If they have systems that can isolate and triangulate gunshots in a crowded noisy city (and they do), you would think a few microphones and a PC would make short work of this.

Tightcoat
"Yes" we will definintely keep everyone informed as to the progress (and hopefully a fix) to these mystery noises going on in our home.
The sounds that we are hearing are all of the ones you mentioned....from rattatattat to booms, pops, and snaps. (loud)
The colder the outside temperature, the more frequent we hear the noise, with or without the furnace running. We are having a cold snap right now so the noise is alive and well. :-(
We will look into some of the other forums that you suggested.
We appreciate everyones input in this - Thank You! :-)

Gunguy 45
We have the University of Arizona here in Tucson, so that was a great suggestion you had of maybe finding a college student in Acoustics to take this on as a project.:thumbup:
Keep you posted...

Hey, all
Just found out the "loud" way that we have the same situation as the ones described above.
We live in Toronto, Ontario in a rented townhouse, wood framed with a slightly sloped roof(mansard roof), no attic.The loud noises start to develop mostly after 11 Pm and last all night, with a frequency of 3-4/hour on average
First i thought that it could be a raccoon trapped but the sounds are way too loud and sharp so unless the raccoon has a sledge hammer...:)).
I will leave the heat on all day and night to see if any change occur.
What bothers me is that we did not have one sound last year and the winter was at least as severe as this one is. I must add that there is a rail with trains running once every 2-3 hours on average very close to the house. Could the vibrations from the trains be the problem?
Maybe we should invest in some better earplugs?!:madhell:

Tightcoat
"Yes" we will definintely keep everyone informed as to the progress (and hopefully a fix) to these mystery noises going on in our home.
The sounds that we are hearing are all of the ones you mentioned....from rattatattat to booms, pops, and snaps. (loud)
The colder the outside temperature, the more frequent we hear the noise, with or without the furnace running. We are having a cold snap right now so the noise is alive and well. :-(
We will look into some of the other forums that you suggested.
We appreciate everyones input in this - Thank You! :-)

Sounds like duct work. Do you leave your furnace fan on low speed all the time? This would account for hearing the sounds at other time, even when the furnace isn't heating. Air leaks - more contrasting temperature introduced into the system makes the problem much worse. Lots of insulation will greatly reduce the amount of noise created if it is a duct issue. Or remove the duct work and replace it with insulated flex ducts.

Jamie

kdreil, do you have an update of your popping problem? Very interested in your solution.

I live in a seven year old building that does the same, in Southern California. Here is the scenario:
I live in the top floor unit of low rise condo building, 25 foot ceilings and walls. The 25 foot wall is split halfway up with a structural beam, where the noise source is centered.
The noise source is a wood framed wall, resting on the beam, southfacing, that pops as the day heats up and again as the night cools. The worst is very late night/early morning. Stucco exterior on the offending wall.
There is a metal arched roof over the dwelling. The roof is supported by the interior, rather than exterior walls, so the offending wall is not loadbearing.
I live near a bay, so the breeze definitely cools things off a lot at night.

The architect, engineer and builder are stumped. The latest theory is that, as the day heats the porous walls and the metal roof, the wall lifts off of the floorplate and beam. Then, as the night cools, the expansion retracts and binding of wood/nails occurs, resulting in popping.

Sorry if this is a thread hijack, but it sounds like our problems are similar. A solution to yours might be the same to mine, and vice versa.

LarryT...
So far we have not come up with a solution to our noise problems. :-(
We highly suspect that our noise is coming from the ceiling drywall and trusses though.
The unbearable noise in this home is all over the house, not one particular area, that's why we are suspecting the ceiling drywall.
We have a framer/drywall guy that will be inspecting the attic this next week to see if he can find anything amiss up there.
We have also looked into a procedure that they are doing here in the Arizona desert homes (also in California and Nevada) and it is called a Ventless Attic. The ventless attics are designed for energy efficiency, but we are also thinking that it might possibly solve the noise in our home, as the interior of the house and the attic would be kept at the same temperature all year round, thus maybe eliminating the thermal expansion noise from the temperature differences.
We have some funny things happening in this home though....even the steam from taking a shower will start the ceiling cracking and popping in the bathroom and the bedroom and also using the oven in the kitchen will create the cracking noise in the kitchen ceiling and adjacent family room.
A windy day will also make the noises occur.
The Structural Engineers have told us that the house is structurally sound, so we're not sure why the wind seems to be involved in this too.
I will update as we go along here.
Thanks for your input. Please post any "fix" ideas that you might come up with also.

Thanks for the update.

Week after next, the builder of my unit will be out. They are planning to lag bolt the southfacing wall to the beam that rests underneath it. Right now, the wall and beam are separated by a 12" sub-floor. With the warm weather we have been having, the pops are louder and more frequent, usually waking us between 4 and 5am. Although, they do not seem as temperamental as yours.

I will keep you updated. Best of luck with your solution...and as always, anyone else's input is greatly appreciated.

kdreil,
I have a similar problem in a second story addition we had built 18 years ago to our home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Rather than continual pops you've described we experience an occasional, perhaps one to three times a night, very load pop, sometimes with a little metalic sound like a nail is involved. It happens most often during the warmer months when we can experience large daily swings in temperature. I've always assumed it is an expantion / contraction phenomenon. We also experience a "settling" sound when we first get up in the morning and step on the floor, and on entering each room in the addition. Once that occurs in the morning we don't experience thereafter during the day. Our builder, who is no longer in business, was very proud of his forman and told us how "tight" he put together the addition; I've always assumed that he didn't leave areas for expansion and contraction with heat changes. Other than the occasional pop and the settling sound in the morning, the addition has been structurally sound for the full 18 years; no cracks or the like. I assumed that this was going to pass after the addition sat there for a couple of years but it has not. Any suggestions on what to do about this would be greatly appreciated.

I installed a porch years ago on west side of my house. the wall started popping a few times every hour during hot summer afternoon until sunset. I loosed a few round of the screws that tight the porch to the wall, it reduced, but not eliminated the noise. I guess the temperature change is the major reason cause the problem.

I think the popping noises are coming from large windows. When temps change and pressure changes in your house the large glass pops from convex to concave and back... creating very large popping noises... usually only in higher elevations and very large windows.

All:
The sheetrock in my home in Texas also pops. The home is 40+ years old, I've owned it for 5+ years and the popping is annoying but I doubt it really hurts anything. Of course, the previous owner did not disclose this. Maybe 70%-80% of the popping is coming from the sheetrock, the remainder seems to come from the timber in the attic.

Very late last winter along one intersection of wall/ceiling (where the popping was the worst in the house) I went along the ceiling and the wall just out/down from the intersection alternating every 8 or 12 inches and placed a drywall screw thru the sheetrock and into the framing. Though I am reserving a final opinion until winter comes back around, so far, this has worked quite well.

I've today attacked another wall/ceiling intersection in the same manner, in a different room (this was a loud place, too, and nearly the year round). I've been here at my computer listening and waiting but, so far, the noise from this spot has stopped. It seems important to drive the screws near the edges of the sheetrock, be sure to carefully countersink them.

If this does indeed work as well as it seems I will later come back with some drywall paste and cover the countersunk screws, then eventually paint all the house. But if these results keep coming in, I'll keep screwing the drywall back down. Not sure what I can do about the popping coming from the timbers in attic, perhaps nothing, but this is only a small % of the noise.

Hope this helps!!!

Do you have skylights or large windows near the sounds? We sometimes have popping when the sun comes up that is apparently from the skylights. It appears to be a common thing when they are framed too tight, since they will expand differently from the rest of the roofing.

Yes, there is some popping when the sun directly hits a large window or two in the home, though it is not bad. I am planning to eventually replace these windows and I will keep this in mind.

The wall I mentioned (that had the worst popping in the house) is an interior wall. The drywall screws I think helped. But I'm reserving a final opinion until winter sets in.

Wish I had never bought this place!!!

Stay tuned