Neighbours noisy pipes - driving me mad!

If they are elderly and it's driving you mad, could you not approach them with a view of you offering to pay for a plumber to have a look at the pipes, it could be as easy as a couple of pipe clips in the right place, or bleeding out a air lock.

 

it could simply be a ballvalve needs changing in the cold water storage or the toilet,

 

You could try adding a chemical noise reducer to the system, it helps prevent the boiler Kettling. But its not a great solution and doesnt always work. Another option is to fork out 4 to 5 hundred quid for a power flush for them. If thats done correctly can make a big difference. Again dependant upon the state of the boiler no guarantees that it'll work.

 

In years gone by before the invention of powerflush kidoligy and chemical addatives designed to make the inventor rich, we used to put fairy washing up liquid in the header tank, drain the system from the boiler if possible till the header tank is empty, put the fairy liquid in the header tank and refill, It used to work well but no doulbt you get the wizz kids of today saying the PH of washing up is in breech of regulation 12.rh of book 4 page 18 cos it causes enviromentally oversized carbon bootprint in the worlds shoe makers window, its all cobblers if you ask me but for the price of a bottle of washing up liquid its gotta be worth a 'go'.

 

No point in responding to that comment Tom some of us have moved on with the times and development some of us hav'nt

 

I know what you're saying Dave, sales,marketing,glossymag hype and brainwashing are jolly hard not to influence the ordinary working people, they've learned what a mistake they made when they developed the balanced flue boiler, It ran and ran and ran never needed service or spares, so they've put that right now ok, luckily there's still a few free minded rebels who will advice people with these priceless boilers to keep um, there are plenty 40+ year old boilers still purrring along to the annoyance of the 'free boiler' salespeople and their backing team ,securing their own future by installing high maintenance boilers at the cost of the victim's lured by sales marketing scams,
Englands become a row of corner shops,

 

Tomp tells it the way it is Dave. OK old boilers might not be as efficient as a brand new all singing, all dancing condensing boiler,,,, but they don't break down as often. My dad had a Baxi back boiler in his house from new and only changed to a combi boiler about 35 yrs later. No breakdowns in that 35 yrs. His combi boiler had only been in around 18 months when it broke down, costing around a £100 to get fixed. Combi has an expected lifespan of around 10yrs before it needs replacing (at what cost n'all??)