We have a phantom flushing sound that is driving us crazy.

Background: house was built in 1965, we are not the original owners. There are two bathrooms, the toilets are stacked right one above the other (one on the main floor, the other in the basement). We believe that the basement bathroom was put in after the house was built, and was a DIY job, based on other work we have have done on that bathroom's shower (was not done correctly, and contractor told us so).

Anyway, have lived here over 30 years, no problem, and now starting about a month ago, we can hear a flushing sound in the wall behind the toilets. When you are upstairs, it sounds like someone flushed the basement toilet. It sounds like the first 1/4 of a full flush sequence (the initial "whoosh" of the water and waste going down part), not the full filling/running water part of the flush sequence.

This happens as often as five times an hour.

It is not the basement toilet; since this began, we replaced the flapper and the seal between the tank and the bowl. We then did the "blue dye" test since, and it is not the tank losing water, and then triggering a fill (and as I said above, all we hear is the "WHOOSH" of what sounds like a flush, but it is not.

It sounds like it is in the wall behind both toilets to us, but when you are upstairs, it sounds more like it is occurring in the wall, but below you.

It is also not the upstairs toilet, because we have heard the sound when we are actually sitting upon that toilet, and it's not that toilet flushing. As I said, it is a sound in the wall behind the toilets.

It also has no correlation to the upstairs toilet having recently been flushed, or other water being run somewhere, or anything else.

This is really driving us quite mad, and since we know it's not either of the actual toilets, what can it be other than poltergeists?

Is there some kind of a valve in the "stack" of piping behind toilets? Could it be that water builds up in there, and then WHOOSHES down all of a sudden, on its own?

Could air somehow build up, and then clear, and there is some "WHOOSH" of water?

THis is happening dozens of times a day, and a plumber is going to have to sit here and wait to hear it happen, but at 300 bucks an hour, with our luck, it won't do it when he is here.

WE need any help we can get. Thanks so much.

shut the water off to the basement toilet,take the ld off then watch or better yet put some food coloring in the tank.my guess is water is getting past the flapper.wait and see or go away and come back later...good luck

Thanks, but we have done all that. We put blue dye in the tank, and after 24 hours, no blue color in the bowl. And we had someone replace the flapper before we even did that test, and the sounds still is happening. But thanks for your time.



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Do you have a water softener?

No, we don't. The city softens the water.

Does this happen 24 hours a day? Do you have a swamp cooler?

We notice it the most in the morning because that is when we are sitting in the kitchen and the house is totally quiet. It does happen at all times though, middle of the night, too.

We don't have a swamp cooler; we are in the midwest. Just a regular air conditioner.

This may sound kind of corny but you might try putting a glass against the wall to use as a stethescope to see if you can get a better listen for the sound and pinpoint it's origin. If you have a microphone that you could plug into a tablet or cell phone you could use that as a scope. Plumbing sounds can transmit through pipes a long way and be hard to pin down to an area.

Good luck.

I have this identical problem. "flush" sound in the wall, about 1/4 the length of time of a normal flush, not the flapper or any toilets flushing in the house. Please let me know if you have as solution

Steve

Hi, we have the same problem, did you eventually get it fixed/resolved?