Bob Scott
New Member
There was an loud noise in my house like a lion or tiger grunting. I could not tell where the noise was coming from. It happened only occasionally during daylight hours in springtime. It seemed to be omnidirectional. At first I thought that it was the same noise that I had heard only once before: Once before somehow the sewer system had made a mighty sucking noise and sucked empty the contents of every drain trap in the house. Toilets were mysteriously dry. If you put your ear near the drain of any sink or toilet you could hear something like traffic noise. That was not the case this time. Traps and toilets had normal water in them.
I checked the drains. There was no water loss from any trap, but the noise seemed to be loudest from the drain in the basement floor next to the water heater. I cursed the plumbing in this badly constructed piece of junk of a house. I tolerated the noise for a few years. Finally my son noticed that the noise was made by a woodpecker tapping on the cap of the plumbing stack (vent) poking out of the roof. He's still there. Every spring he announces his presence to the lady woodpeckers in the neighbourhood by rat-tat-tatting on the hood of my plumbing stack every couple of days. It must work for him. He must be THE macho ladies' man! I wonder how long these blue breasted woodpeckers live?
Also, I wonder why they install hoods on plumbing stacks? To shield the sewer from getting rainwater in?
I checked the drains. There was no water loss from any trap, but the noise seemed to be loudest from the drain in the basement floor next to the water heater. I cursed the plumbing in this badly constructed piece of junk of a house. I tolerated the noise for a few years. Finally my son noticed that the noise was made by a woodpecker tapping on the cap of the plumbing stack (vent) poking out of the roof. He's still there. Every spring he announces his presence to the lady woodpeckers in the neighbourhood by rat-tat-tatting on the hood of my plumbing stack every couple of days. It must work for him. He must be THE macho ladies' man! I wonder how long these blue breasted woodpeckers live?
Also, I wonder why they install hoods on plumbing stacks? To shield the sewer from getting rainwater in?
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