Continual buzzing sound from walls

T

Tarquin

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I got foam insulation put into my extermal walls about five months ago. After that, I noticed a buzzing sound coming from the walls, every so often but nothing major. I always thought it was next doors heating coming on.

The last week, however, the buzzing is now 24 hours a day.I went next door to the neighbours and they said they have hardly had their heating on the last week.After a bit of research and talking with my father, it could be that the foam stuff might have affected the wiring in the walls. The sparks guy I use, cant come out for a month and he didnt sound very positive about solving the noise problem, when I told him about the foam in them walls.

I havent done any checks yet myself (like knocking off the power and checking out each room). Does anyone know what i would need to do? I am a bit sick about all this as Im wondering if I messed up by not getting the wiring in the walls fully checked out first before doing the insulation (its an old house and my father said the wires might have been just dropped down and not done properly). Am I looking at a full rewire and also having to get rid of the insulation, which already cost me 2k?
 
I have heard that some types of insulation react with cables. The shielding on the cable corrodes. Can't shed any light on the buzzing though...sorry.
 
I'm not trying to be funny here but is it just you can hear the buzzing sound because I was thinking down the lines of tinnitus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus and it reminds me of something similar which happened to myself a while back.
Just a thought and I may be miles out with it.
P.s sorry for bringing medical issues into it.
 
I dont' know why you haven't done your own check, as you mention, turning off the power at the mains and seeing if that stops the buzzing. You should do that immediately. At least you will then know if it is the electrics or not.

If it's not the electrics then you won't have waited a month for your electrician to come out when we won't be able to do anything anyway. And if it is the electrics then you shouldn't wait for that electrician, get someone who can come straight away (I'm sure there are some recommended on other threads in this forum).

Also you should immediately get on to the people who put in the foam insulation for you and find out what they have to say about it - they may have come across it before and be able to advise you.
 
This may sound silly but I heard a constant buzzing behind a wall in our house a few years back, also an old house, and it turned out to be a wasp nest, big enough to warrant a horror movie named after it. I've since read that they take up residence in the spring, and in our case they came out through the bedroom wall in October and swamped the room for quite a while. It was actually a bit of a nightmare and they made a total mess of the wall/ceiling, so I hope that's not what you have, but it's worth checking out. Good luck to you, hope it's nothing too serious.
 
UPDATE ON THIS - guys,this is getting very serious,neither the OH or myself have slept much the last two nights with this noise. I switched off the electricity at the mains - can still hear the noise. So we went outside our house and my wife thinks she could hear a humming near one of our bedroom windows. I rang the ESB and they are sending someone out next week to check if they can find the source. I rang Bord Gais and the guy I spoke to said, good luck, I have my work cut for me trying to locate the source of the noise. He didnt think its the pipes as we dont have the boiler on and can still hear the noise and said it also sounded electrical to him from my description.

I know nothing about electrics but apparantly even the electricity switched off, there could be a transformer within the house running? I am not inclined to think it is next door as the noise is very loud in the box room (which doesnt adjoin next doors house).

Can anyone help or have any other information in light of the above? My wife is nearly in tears with tiredness. I will get another electrician in early next week, neither of us could wait a month, with this noise, for our own one.
 
If the mains is off and you dont have mains (supply) wires running along the wall etc, I would tend to think you need the exterminators in. BTW mains humm is at 50Hz, if that helps!
 
Just a thought, try turning on both you hot and cold bathroom taps and have a listen..........
 
if you have the electrical mains switch swiched off for a while and the buzzing sound remains, it seems to eliminate the electric cables as being your source on noise.

How are the esb cables routed into the house?
Is your esb meter located indoors or outside in cabnit.
Turning off the electrical mains switch does not turn off the power to the esb meter.

What type of insulation did you put in?
Foam fill or foam beads?
 
This sounds like the start of the best horror film script ever!!!
.......Sits down with popcorn and beer............bzzzz..bzzzz....
 
Hi thanks again for the replies. Re the ear plugs, we already wear them and the really good ones as well - the noise goes right through them. My electrician said that if the problem is electrical, the electrical waves will go right through any ear plugs, but if the problem was any other sound, it wouldnt.

Thanks to asking one of my neighbours,(who came into the house and had a good listen) I think I have finally figured out the problem- we have cables running right outside each bedroom window. I got on a ladder and there is a distinctly loud hum coming from them. When I go back into each bedroom and go to the wall where the cable is on the outside, the humming is louder there. So it sounds as if the noise of the cables is coming through the walls. As we are there three years now, I cant figure out why the cables should be only vibrating so much more now.

While I have the ESB coming out on Tuesday, my problem now really is what they will do about it. What bugs me a bit is that my own house seems to have quite a number of cables around my windows, whereas the neighbour who helped me, his own house has just one cable running down it.

I will let you if the ESB agree that its the cables!
 
The fact that you have had your cavity walls filled - probably means the insulation is now carrying the sound from the exterior cables through to the interior of the house.

Thats why the problem really has only arisen in the last while. IMHO getting the cables moved is the only answer.
 
Just on the off chance have yopu checked any battery operated devices, clock , timer, mobile phone. I had 3 call to a house once where the customer was convinced her alarm keypad was beeping every so often. Turned out to be one of the kids toys under the bed.
 
UPDATE AGAIN- Disaster. The cables on the walls outside are not ESB, they are NTL, phone - our ESB cables are underground. We had a guy from the ESB in the house for almost an hour checking everything he could think of. He could hear a slight humming sound but couldnt locate it.He didnt know what effect the foam insulation could have but Im really beginning to feel that (as one poster said) putting the foam in has caused the sound of the cables to be amplified into our rooms. The ESB guy said that the voltage from cables for NTL and phone wouldnt be as strong as for electricity but he did agree there was a slight humming sound in the house.

I am getting an electrician in tomorrow, but is there any point? The humming is there when the power is knocked off, our ESB meter is fine (been checked) and I cant get any cables moved as there would be nowhere else for them to go. I will get him in though just on the offchance something has been missed.


I know this is probably crazy but does anyone know if I could get the foam insulation taken back out even from one wall, just to see if there would be a difference? Im asking here as I am dreading ringing the company who did it for us and thinking Im off my head. I noticed that drilling for insulation was done right next to all the cables. The worst room is the back bedroom and the ESB guy could hear the humming there and I was thinking of that wall.

I know this probably sounds like we are imaginging it but we really arent, day time is ok, you can put up with it but night time is very bad and ear plugs dont help at all.

If anyone has other information that might help (as in could it be the insulation acting as a conductor for the cables sound through the walls) I would appreciate it. I am starting to get desperate.
 
Have you tried disconnecting any phones in the house or anything that has batteries.
I would put money on this being something stupid.
 
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