
What causes the sound of a dripping tap and how do you stop it? - daegloe
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180622104736.htm
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mchahn
This is at least the second time that tap dripping was involved in a
scientific study.

The first that I know of is when some Santa Cruz (hippie capital) students set
up electronics to record the timing of drips for a paper. They were going to
break the pattern down to understand it. They tried and tried but the pattern
always seemed random.

With the help of other researchers they discovered it was caused by chaos.
This was the first time that chaos theory was described, although Feynman had
noticed that some equations behaved weirdly when banging on his calculator.

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voxadam
Interesting. Is this the paper?

[https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9601(85)90065-9](https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9601\(85\)90065-9)

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btrettel
Yes. There's also this book:

[http://www.worldcat.org/title/dripping-faucet-as-a-model-
cha...](http://www.worldcat.org/title/dripping-faucet-as-a-model-chaotic-
system/oclc/507926680)

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dejawu
One clever solution I've seen, if you can't fix it right away, is to tie a
string from the spout and hang it down to the drain. The water runs along the
string instead of falling and dripping.

~~~
newnewpdro
This reminds me of a home I saw once with large rusty chains used as down spot
channels from the rain gutters, it was pretty neat looking.

~~~
grzm
Rain chains are common in Japan, and decorative as well as useful.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_chain)

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mgraczyk
My solution if I can't fix the leak is usually to place a sponge or cloth
under the tap.

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adrianmonk
As long as we're asking plumbing noise questions, I'll ask one that I've never
managed to find a satisfactory answer to.

When I turn on the hot water, such as in a tub or a sink, some cold water
comes out before hot water does. (I have to wait for the water to "get hot",
which of course is not really getting hot, it's flushing cold water out.) I'm
pretty sure I'm not imagining this, but I can hear when the water is hot. The
only way I know how to describe it is that it sounds a bit calmer. Why is
that?

~~~
Negitivefrags
I saw a video about this recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_4dDvcZeM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_4dDvcZeM)

~~~
adrianmonk
Thanks! I have literally wondered this since I was a kid, and this is the
first satisfying explanation I've seen.

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chrisdhoover
ITT people are so clever in creating a workaround but are unable to perform
basic maintenance. Replacing washers is a fundamental skill

~~~
kwhitefoot
Stop using taps that need washers. All the taps in my house (in Norway) are
over thirty years old and none of them drip. The reason is simply that they
use a cartridge with ceramic mating surfaces.

~~~
inferiorhuman
> Stop using taps that need washers. All the taps in my house (in Norway) are
> over thirty years old and none of them drip. The reason is simply that they
> use a cartridge with ceramic mating surfaces.

Cartridges (ceramic or otherwise) fail for a variety of reason. Gaskets come
in some fairly standard sizes and cost a few pennies to replace. Cartridges
typically cost $20-$40 each, are quite non-standard even from a single
manufacturer, and some manufacturers will require special tools to
remove/install their cartridges. Plus a cartridge will still typically have
gaskets that can fail (e.g. I recently had a diverter valve that was part of a
cartridge leak and flood the under-sink area).

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diashreewg
Put a dishrag under the drip-point, how difficult can it be? It will asorb all
drip sounds. Let the drops fall onto a dish-rag.

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KenanSulayman
The Cambridge University video linked to from the article with water drops
being filmed “using high-speed cameras and high-sensitivity microphones”:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iP3Dwy0RSQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iP3Dwy0RSQ)

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ChuckMcM
So a polyurethane mat with spikes pointing up to break the surface before
impact would quiet it.

~~~
abakker
Like the fresheners in urinals have?

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amelius
It's a bit disappointing that we need high speed cameras to figure this out. I
would have expected simulations to be sufficient.

~~~
delinka
I think the 3D fluid dynamics simulation required to find this might be a
much. I always figured "water droplets smashing into another surface" was
sufficient. My dripping taps never seem to drip into a puddle of water, but on
the sink surface. With the high-speed capture work from years ago on why
droplets splash back from dry surfaces (because air), I'd have also assumed
air would play a role in drops making noise when falling on water.

My point: I don't think we could have simulated this effectively; I think a
thought experiment would suffice; but ultimately, high-speed would be a
necessary step to observe what either experiment predicted.

