Can I reduce or eliminate water hammer without plumbing?

Question

I have a friend who lives in an apartment with terrible water hammer problems which the management is unwilling to fix.

I'm curious if there is a product or device that would attach, for instance, to a faucet with the faucet on that would act as a water hammer arrestor. I haven't seen anything like that, and I expect that even if it did exist it wouldn't help too much as it's not near the source of the problem, and the pipes would still rattle, but even if it helped a little he might get more sleep.

Right now it feels like someone's hitting his walls with a sledgehammer a few times an hour as other people in the building use the supply.

Answer 1

Pretty much, no. To reduce the noise you need to secure the pipes properly within the walls, and add pressure-relief tubes to the pipes that hold air in them beyond and above each fixture.

You cannot affect the pressure within the closed system of the plumbing by changing something on the outside of the system... so at a minimum you have to at least open the walls - something the landlord will frown on...

Answer 2

Tip for anyone suffering from water hammer from neighbours washing machine...or banging pipes. I had horrendously loud water hammer from next door neighbours washing machine. I pushed foam behind the pipes to my boiler...now it is hardly hearble. Try that before going and buying an expensive water hammer arrestor