glennjanie

Three steps to find out:
1. Turn the hot water on, listen to it pop; turn the water off and listen to a slightly different popping sound.
2. No water leak stains ever show up. The reason, there's no leak.
3. When someone urinates in a water closet (commode) they cause a very small trickle in the drain which sounds like a leak.
Glenn

lostwong

Wow, thanks for all the interesting tips and info so far!

So I went upstairs to the bathroom, turned on the sink faucet full blast, hot water. After about 30 seconds, I started to hear the familiar dripping sound about once a second.

I turned off the faucet and the length between drips started to grow further apart. The sound of the drips sounded the same to me. Admittedly though, I'm not sure what constitutes "slightly" different popping sounds.

I then thought that I would try turning on the faucet full blast with cold water. The drips started up again but at a different pitch, half as loud, and maybe twice as fast. Turning off the faucet once again causes the length of time between drips to grow until I don't hear it anymore.

Looking under the sink, there's plastic piping all the way into the wall for the drain and copper piping for the hot and cold water supply lines.

From what you've described above, it sounds like the popping sound due to expansion/contraction shouldn't be occurring continuously should it? It should only happen during the initial transition from the pipes being cold to hot and vice versa. But I'm hearing continuous "dripping" sounds.

Then again, I don't have much of a background in plumbing so please correct me if I'm wrong.

Daryl in Nanoose

Here is a idea I thought of, fill up a small bucket with water from outside and pour it down the drain in the bathroom sink and see if you can hear any drips and get back to us asap..

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glennjanie

No, you shouldn't hear the dripping continously. Do you hear it in the morning, after no-one has run water all night? Do you have a dripping faucet? Copper is not so bad about the expansion but the plastic drain pipes will amplify the dripping sounds inside them.
I think you could give it a week and search for wet spots near the sound; if it is a leak it will show up in a week or less.
Glenn

lostwong

Sorry for not getting back to you guys sooner... been ridiculously busy at work and haven't had time for any of this.

Daryl: I'll try the bucket and water tonight...
Glenn: This problem has been ongoing ever since we moved in... so that's almost 7 months now. I have yet to see any time of water damage in the ceiling...

You guys have been awesome... thanks for taking your time to try and figure this out.

cibula11

Just to ease your concern. Our basement is directly below our bathroom. After someone using the toilet, flush or not, I hear a dripping sound that has already been described. I would be willing to guess that like Glenn said, this is what is happening. If you hear a leak constantly, (when water is not being ran or toilet not flushed) then you might have leak. But if you only notice after the toilet has been flushed you should be okay. After 7 mos., a persistant leak would most likely be noticeable by now.