Have you heard anything strange in the middle of the night in the last week or so? The good news is, it isn’t your neighbour engaging in strange midnight activities. What you have been hearing, usually at night when there is less background noise, are frost-quakes! This is a mixture of the nearby ground shifting and possibly your home itself. Snow is a good insulator but when there isn’t a lot of it on the ground, (like it was a week or so ago), and we have extreme cold weather, the frost line moves deeper into the ground. If the frost reaches any ground water / saturated soil, the water expands as it freezes and can create a tremendous amount of pressure. The result is very similar to actual earthquakes, the ground will shift to release the built up pressure and groans and bangs result. Your house can also make sounds as it expands and contracts with these large temperature changes. Roof trusses (and other parts of your house) will pop or crack, sometimes quite loudly! There isn’t anything we can do but enjoy nature’s free music, though not so enjoyable at 3am..
Thank you for this very clear and illustrated article on this phenomenon. I have heard the noise before, figured it was not serious but not why. Great explanation!
Thank you for this very clear and well-illustrated article on this phenomenon. I have heard this noise before, figured it was not serious but did not know why. Great explanation!
It would certainly explain the pops and bangs we’ve been hearing at all hours of the night. I was thinking it might be the foundation giving up on us. So Thank you for the explanation.