Continual buzzing sound from walls

Have you checked ballcocks?
Is there a bathroom near your bedroom?

Could possibly be a ballcock in a cistern or in the attic humming. Could be a leaking shower. Perhaps try, if you haven't already done so .. turning off the water supply at night and see if there is an improvement.

Is it definitely foam sprayed into the walls?

OK, if you are desparate, a wayout suggestion:

maybe some kind of weird interference wave / harmonic has been set up between the signals in the various cables. To disrupt this, try changing the physical configuration of one or all the cables.

In other words - have you tried JIGGLING them??!!

(I am actually being serious - maybe separate them, pull them out of the wall a bit or shove them in a bit, see if it helps. If the NTL one happened to break, well there you go, I think they are pretty easy to reconnect (jam them back together and tape up AFAIK). I'd rather go without phone or TV than sleep).

OK more ideas, the power has been turned off so:

As suggested before, it may be a ballcock run a tap, flush the jacks and see the sound is still there.

Also

Would one of the neighbours have one of these units installed : [broken link removed] Which are said to transmit a ultrasonic pulses through the houses wiring.

This might sound obvious but do you have an electric rodent repellant plugged in? They send a buzzing noise through the walls.

VOR said:

This might sound obvious but do you have an electric rodent repellant plugged in? They send a buzzing noise through the walls.

Click to expand...

He has already tried turning off the mains

OP again - electrician called. He looked at the cables outside. The problem is that three cables alone are my neighbours, only two are ours, neighbours cables are right next to our wall. He could hear the sound, said it sounds like a harmonics issue, said to ring NTL and eircom, to get them to check cables, neighbours included (which will go down a lead balloon with them, not friendly people). He also said about getting our water tanks checked, that if they were leaking, they would be running continuosly. He looked at the alarm and said even if ESB and electrics were turned off, the transformer of that could be emitting something.

I will keep ye posted, thanks again for all the help to date.

If it is a harmonics isse then you really should try to change the physical configuration as far as possible.

There must be some slack that you can pull one or more cables a bit to try and break up the harmonic. Maybe even loose a clip or two to enable this.

You don't have to break them, just try jiggling them.

Even if your mains is switched off the pest controller could be battery backed, plug it out, no messing we had one in the house and after about 4 years it went faulty and we could hear the humming almost made you physically sick had to bin it.(pity the mice).
Has any work being carried out recently in your vicinty by the ESB etc. recent studies have shown some people are more perceptable to high voltage humming than others.
Cables like NTL/Eircom don't operate in this range so can't imagine it would be them. Also the insulation should be bouncing external noise back out of your house not back in, unless the company have trapped cables on the internals of the cavity brick.
Best of luck

Are you semi detached? Are the walls that the sounds in in external or internal or joined to the neighbors?
I'd get NTL and the others out to look over their cables. I'd also ring the insulation guys, they may have heard of it before. They may have caused it by putting pressure on a cable.

To produce sound something is vibrating and using power. It could also be dangerous and start a fire.
If its all the walls then its likely ot be the insulation instead of one wire on the outside.

OP again - I may have found the answer but its not the one I wanted. A very nice neighbour came in and put his ear to everything, internal wall, external walls, the windows.He could kind of only hear the humming with the walls but when he put his ear to the windows, he could hear exactly what I am hearing. A new motorway opened up only about two weeks ago, neighbour thinks all my windows are vibrating from the sounds of the motorway (its about a mile away) and reflecting it back into the house and its walls. Is he right? Certainly this morning. Its just crazy.When I open a window, I can hear a very slight hum in the distance from the motorway. When I close the window, the sound is much stronger.

I am seriously worried about the insulation, mostly because I am getting such confusing information on it. SEI said that the foam should actually be muffling sound, not causing it, that cables are protected and that the foam shouldnt have disturbed them. Electrician I had in, has foam himself and said the stuff used is supposed to not affect the cables. I did contact the insulation company and they said they never heard of the foam affecting cables (company was recommended to me by a friend who is related to one of the owners, and they are aware that that is how I found out about them so they may not be fobbing me off, I dont know.)

NTL is only happening after Easter so that is still a possibilty and the alarm.

There is one thing - the transformer for the door bell is buzzing. But with the mains off, the humming sound is still there. Im just wondering though if the transformer could still be causing an effect or is this not possible, given the humming is there, when mains is off.

If my neighbour is correct about the windows and the motorway, would getting new windows in (overdue to be done anway) help?

Edited to say I forgot to add one thing - neighbour said there is a mast in a playing field not far from my house, said it could be a mobile phone one (ESB said none are near me). Should I investigate this?

Why not purchase one of these sound level meters and trace where the levels are highest [broken link removed]

No the foam insulation is pumped in and then expands much like you get for filling gaps

Closed cell foam creates millions of tiny air capsules and is probably the best insulation available on the market. Just consider, they spend billions launching space shuttles, and usually a portion of the launching rocket is covered in polyurethane spray foam.

In my experience spray foam is amazing for muffling sound. It's probably not the root cause...

Now back to your buzzing problem--it sounds like a very unique issue. I only wonder if you have single or double pane glass windows. I think a double pane window would help....

I do have one theory--did the contractor move any of your outside wires, or has someone else moved them? Did the contractor spend any time outside the house/ or did they have any need to touch those wires?

The vibrating cable issue sounds perplexing--I do wonder what your root cause is.

I had a buzzing noise in the house for some time - turned out to be water hammer (lots of posts on this). The vibration in the water pipe can cause a humming/vibrating noise. The noise was worst in one of the bedroooms as the cold water pipe into the tank in the attic was running up behind the wall in this room. Plumber put a disc in the tank which seems to have solved the problem (or has least eliminated the buzzing noise).

Try deadening the sound from the windows.. i.e you'd have to lean a plank or something against the center of the window, or quite near the center.. this may prevent the windows vibrating if it's a reasonant frequency issue with the windows, I can't see anything else vibrating at a reasonant frequency.


PS. even placing your hand firmly against the center of the window should help.. so you could test this at night.. however you can only test one window at a time this way.

I wonder what it turned out to be!

Try lifting the offending cables off the wall and re-fix them with some rubber or something that will absorb the vibrations going into your wall.
You could try ask whoever installed the cables but i wouldn't hold my breath on them doing anything about it.
Good luck!

ollie

I have this same issue!

Oh my gosh. I thought I was going crazy. I have heard a dull humming noise which I think is coming from the celing or walls. I have double brick walls so i'm assuming it's not coming from there. It also coincides with new people moving in next door. What is this noise????

I thought I had an ear infection but I can only hear the sound when I'm at home, and nowhere else.

I was wondering if perhaps people next were marijuana in a shed and that's the sound of the lighting and exhaust fan, but now I'm not sure. I've turned off my fridge, it's not that........

i've put my hand on windows thinking they could be reverberating, but it's not that.

Who can I see about getting this looked into? My friends can also hear the noise, so it's not me going bonkers.

Any help would be great.

thanks.

Our ESB meter is in our utility room. That room and the room beside it have a constant hum. It's awful. There is a an ESB pole across the road from our house that also has a hum/vibration coming from it. Family members suffer from tinnitus, a dreadful affliction. She has to sleep with an MP3 player on all night.
I would imagine that UPC can move the cable either that or ask them to remove it altogether.

Just a small point, if the insulation is reacting with the electic cables, switching off the power is not going to make any difference.