What Are Those Popping Sounds? 

What Are Those Popping Sounds? 

So here’s the scenario: You’re winding down from a long day. You turn off the lights and lay down on your bed. As you slowly drift to sleep suddenly…CRACK. POP. Did you hear that? You may have heard that before at some point, in just about any house you've lived in. So often we are told that the sounds we hear are “just the house settling.” That phrase in itself is alarming, but many times there's more to it than just “the house settling.  

What causes those popping sounds? 

So what are these popping noises that you can hear in a house? Most houses are built with wood timber. In a place that heats up and cools down, the wood will shrink and expand with the temperature, and when that occurs, the wood rubs up against each other, which creates friction, which makes the wood pop and rubs. Often this can be a result of foundation movement as well and if your house is continuing to move on the perimeter of the interior walls sometimes they can push on the framing members up in the attic and again it can have the same effect it will push and push and push until it reaches a point where it can no longer resist and it slips a little bit and pops and that's the noises you hear and sometimes it'll be a cracking noise or a creaking noise those are common here as well. Areas that may cause the most common noticeable sounds are in the kitchen, the attic, bathrooms, the garage, and even the stem wall on the outside.  

What other sounds might you hear? 

What you might hear could be Nails popping. this happens when drywall shifts a little bit and the drywall nail slightly slips out and you'll see the nail head pop away from the drywall. You'll see or hear wall separation between the ceiling and the floor; sometimes, you'll hear a little noise. One thing that we hear pretty often, which can be quite loud, is tile cracking. Quite often if you have the edges raising it compresses the tile on top and it will pop it up. That could be a loud noise and I've heard some people say it sounds like a bomb going off. Sometimes you just get a crack in the tile and that will make a little noise. Occasionally, walls can push up into the attic space above. When they do that, they encounter drywall on top of the rafters, which are the bottom sides of the trusses that go from wall to wall. It pushes up between those and cracks the drywall, so that's a sound you may as well hear. 

So what should you do if you hear these sounds? 

So if you hear these sounds and they're accompanied by any of the signs that we've talked about, you should contact a licensed contractor so that you know exactly what's causing the problem and how to fix it. It’s important to be proactive with any foundation issue. Whether you choose to sell your home or raise a family and retire there, you want to make sure you’re on a firm foundation.