Washing machine water feed shaking around

[WilburMcG]

A couple months ago I started hearing a banging when my washing machine would kick the water input on and off. It's a 3 year old Whirlpool, and does this on/off frequently during certain stages of the washing cycle so I'm hearing this banging a lot.

It looks to me like the plastic box where the water pipe terminates and I connect in my washer hoses is allowing the cold water pipe to be loose, thus it moves and must be banging up against a stud inside the wall?

If I have diagnosed this correctly, what's the easy way to replace? It looks like the whole darn spigot head has to be removed from the pipe coming from the wall into the plastic housing????

 

[Reach4]

Does your box have visible water hammer arrestors? If so, replace the problem arrestor. If not, there are add-on arrestors. They can go at either end of the washing machine hoses.

For info on how to get into your box area, I suggest you post a photo, 800 pixels or less, 200KB or less.

 

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[WilburMcG]

Hammer arrestors...never heard of em! No, mine are simply direct connected. It's the left/red/hot one that appears looser and rattles around when I move it by hand.

 

[Jadnashua]

Water hammer arresters work best as close to the offending, fast-acting valve as possible. The moving water has inertia (kinetic energy). Just like you can't stop your car like an on/off switch, when you try to do that with water, it wants to keep moving. The arrestors have a place for that water to rebound, absorbing that energy. Some do it with an air bladder, some do it with a piston that compresses an air chamber. Those shown, are using a piston - water on one side, a sealed air chamber on the other.

Note, this effect is worse the higher your water pressure (the water will move faster if it is under higher pressure). So, if it just started to do this after 3-years, you may have a pressure regulator that has failed, or the utility has raised their supply pressure. If you have an expansion tank, it may have failed, but if that were the case, you'd probably also notice the T&P safety valve on the water heater will be draining periodically after using hot water while it is reheating the tank.

 

[WilburMcG]

Thanks Jim. I'm going to cross my fingers and just hope it is the water pipe loose in the plastic housing shown above. It is close to 30 years old and I think just shook loose. I guess it had some kind of nut securing it in hole through the plastic housing but nothing is there. I probably need that plastic thing replaced...maybe there is an improved modern equivalent? As well as installing a set of hammer arrestors?

 

[Reach4]

Somebody may know stuff about your box. But if nobody comes up with specific info, I would tug on that trim to see if it comes off easily enough. That may expose a mounting method, such as screws or nails, that could allow you to access the loose nut that you want to tighten.

 

[Jadnashua]

If the locking nut came loose (probably from years of shaking!), that may mask the problem, but the actual wear and tear on the hoses from the pressure spike when the WM shuts off still will make an arrestor a useful addition. Some of the more modern WM supply boxes have a single handle control for both the hot and cold, and may also have integrated arrestors, but if the thing works, and you add some arrestors (I'd put them on the back of the WM), replacing the thing won't buy you much.

If your supply pressure is high (over 80psi should be lowered!), other hoses and valves in your home are getting exposed to more than they were designed for, and you need to be aware. A screw-on pressure gauge is cheap, and you can install it at say the WM supply to test. Get one with a second, tattle-tale hand and leave it attached for at least 24-hours. Water pressure can change throughout the day and night, and if you have an issue with the water heater, it can spike as it reheats water (it can easily get to 150psi under some circumstances). The tattle-tale hand will show you the peak observed.

 

[WilburMcG]

I will go to Lowes and look for a pair of these arrestors. They look like easy additions from the picture above. I still feel like the feed lines might rattle given their have lost whatever locking nut was used and feel like I need to shore that up somehow...