Can I Turn Off Our Boiler/Hot Water Heater at Night?
Hi, We have a Munchkin boiler and a hot water heater that makes an infernal racket when it turns on, apparently (I’m told) from the exhaust pipe heating up and cooling down. It’s a loud ticking/tapping noise. It isn’t such a big deal during the day, but at night, it wakes us up, and is…
Hi,
We have a Munchkin boiler and a hot water heater that makes an infernal racket when it turns on, apparently (I’m told) from the exhaust pipe heating up and cooling down. It’s a loud ticking/tapping noise. It isn’t such a big deal during the day, but at night, it wakes us up, and is really starting to drive me batty. I’m wondering if I can just turn the whole system off between 10 pm and 6 am. We were going to just rely on space heaters for heat, and take our showers before and after that time. There is a scary red switch in there that says “emergency off switch” so I’m hesitant to flip it, but I can’t take another night of telltale-heart thumping. Is this a bad idea? Am I going to screw up the system somehow? Any constructive input really appreciated.
Don’t worry about using that red switch. All you are doing is cutting the power to the boiler, which does not harm it in any way. Flip it on and off all day if you like.
Thanks JKKennedy, that’s kind of reassuring. Although our pipes are brand new, but I guess they could be too close together or something. Regardless, they are behind walls, and I really, really don’t have to open up walls. But we’ll see what our options are….
Thanks so much Master Plvmber. I actually have someone from your company coming on Monday to service the unit just to cover all of my bases! I signed up for your yearly service agreement.
And now I feel better about taking charge with the big scary red switch. 🙂
There’s nothing on that boiler that won’t still be there in the morning if you turn it off at night.
Use the big red scary switch or the little switch on the boiler…it doesn’t matter.
We had loud tapping coming from our pipes a couple of years ago and I was going out of my mind. The noise would start whenever the boiler came on in the middle of the night and even earplugs didn’t help. John at Gateway was able to fix it (MasterPlvmber) by replacing the pipe supports in the basement. The pipes had slipped over the years and there was some kind of condensation/buildup that was causing the loud drip/tap torture. We haven’t had any noise since.
Thanks Bob, but apparently even without the heat on, it still has to kick on in order to keep the water temperature up and ready to go. So at 3 am, there it goes… tap tap tap…
Agree…turn the thermostat down. If you don’t already have one, you could get a programmable one. We have one set to drop down at midnight and then warm a little in the morning.
Probably easier to turn your thermostat down low enough so that your boiler doesn’t go on–say 50 or 55 degrees.